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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/scienceeducationOOroya 



LB 

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;# One Shilling Ne, 



science ana 
Education 



Edited with an Introduction by 

SIR RAY LANKESTER, K.C B. 







"^HIS volume contains seven lectures which 
were delivered by Whewell, Faraday, 
Latham, Daubeny, Tyndall, Paget and 
Hodgson before the Royal Institution in 1854. 
For clarity of expression and a true grasp of the 
highest educational ideal, they have never been 
surpassed and they should prove an extremely 
valuable contribution to the theory that should 
guide educational reconstruction. Sir Ray 
Lankester has added an Introduction and 
Explanatory Notes. 

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN . 




Glass - ■■• 
Book 



SCIENCE AND 
EDUCATION 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 



MUTUAL AID : A Factor of Evolution 

By Prince Kropotkin 

THE NATURE OF MAN 

By Blie Metchnikoit. Edited by Chalmers 
Mitchell, F.R.S. 

THE MIND AND HEALTH SERDjJS 

Edited by H. Addington Bruce, A.M. 

Each vol. Crown 8vo, 5s. net 

HUMAN MOTIVES. By James Jackson 
Putnam, M.D. 

THE MEANING OP DREAMS. By Isador 

H. Coriat, M.D. 
SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS. By H. 

Addington Bruce, A.M. 
THE INFLUENCE OF JOY. By GEORGE 

Van Ness Dearborn 



London : WILLIAM HEINEMANN 



SCIENCE AND 
EDUCATION 



LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL 
INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

SIR E. RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B. 




LONDON . WILLIAM HEINEMANN 






L37 



London : William Heinemann, 1917 



INTRODUCTION 

The present volume is a reprint of one published in 1855, 
and now out of print, consisting of seven lectures delivered 
at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1854 by seven 
of the most distinguished men of science of that day. The 
purpose of the Managers of the Royal Institution was to set 
before the public the views of scientific men as to the importance 
of making Natural Science an integral part of the education of 
all classes. Sixty-two years have passed and we are still so 
far from having carried out the views of those lecturers that a 
great outcry has arisen in this country — now suffering under 
the pressure and difficulties of warfare — to the effect that 
there has been " neglect of science," both in the management 
of great public interests and in private enterprises. It is 
maintained that the nation is in imminent danger owing to the 
ignorance of and contempt for Natural Science in the governing 
class, in the manufacturing and commercial classes, and among 
the people generally. It is pointed out that the only remedy 
for this is a complete change — a reformation in the education 
given in our schools and universities. The effort to bring about 
such a change began sixty-two years ago with the lectures 
here reprinted — and it is interesting to look back at the reasons 
for reform put forward by those lecturers so many years ago 
and to consider what value they have at the present day and 
why it is that they and the arguments and efforts of later 
reformers have had so little result. For it is the fact that though 
some improvement has been made, it is very small. Our 
school education, especially that of the great public schools 
and that rewarded and encouraged by the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge, does not yet comprise as a necessary 
integral part the study of Natural Science. Natural Science 
is still treated as a superfluity, an " extra," tolerated, but 

5 



6 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

misunderstood and misdirected (as is natural enough) by the 
devotees of the established old-fashioned and curious " classical 
curriculum," which it must eventually completely replace. 
The reasons which have led to the consumption of so vast a 
proportion of the time of the youth of the well-to-do class in 
a clumsy and ill-contrived attempt to force it into familiarity 
with the actual writings of Latin and Greek authors — an 
attempt which is almost invariably unsuccessful — are not 
far to seek. Three hundred years ago a well-educated " gentle- 
man " must read Latin if he would read anything and must 
Avrite it too. This is convincingly set forth by the father of 
the present Minister of Education in a paper contributed 
by him to a volume of Essays on a Liberal Education,* 
which contains several other essays of a most instructive 
character for those who are to-day considering the question 
of Educational Reform. Among these is an invaluable chapter 
"On the History of Classical Education" by the late Charles 
Stuart Parker, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford, 
which furnishes to-day — as it did when written — information 
of fundamental importance as to how it has come about that 
this country is subjected to the preposterous and disastrous 
tyranny of " classical education." The genial and gifted 
Lord Houghton (Monckton-Milnes), in the essay contributed 
by him " On the Present Social Results of Classical Education," 
deplores the fact (and none could speak with greater authority 
than he) " that the whole of the boyhood and the greater part 
of the youth of the higher classes of our countrymen should 
be occupied with the study of the language, history, and customs 
of two nations which have long disappeared from the surface of 
our globe, and which, but for the common conditions of all 
humanity, have no more relation to us than the inhabitants of 
another planet." He, a scholar and man of letters, asks 
whether " the imagined attributes of a classical education are 
not referable to circumstances and treatment with which classics 
as such have nothing whatever to do — and whether the most 
enlightened advocates of the retention of the system are not 
unconsciously affected by a powerful literary superstition ? " 
He makes the very significant observation that "it is as the 
proper and recognized education of the governing classes, the 
honourable accomplishment of all aristocracy, that the classical 
* Macmillan, 1867. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

teaching endures so firmly, even now when it has ceased to 
be the mysterious speech of the Church and when it is no 
longer the authoritative exposition of Law. For as soon as 
it became the qualification of a gentleman to read and write 
at all, it was Latin that he read and wrote." 

After showing how small is the amount of classical learning 
carried over from school and college into later life by those 
whose whole youth is recklessly sacrificed to "a classical 
education," Lord Houghton says : " However imperceptible 
may be the effects of classical training in after-life, either in 
manners or in mind, as long as the fashion of the education 
endures, our higher classes will continue to subject their 
children to it, and the large portion of society which desires, 
at any cost, to give their progeny what seems to them the best 
start in life will follow the example. Whilst a boy is placed, 
on his arrival at school, according to his classical attainments, 
the preliminary classical teaching becomes necessary, whatever 
be the sacrifice of other natural, opportune, or more available 
instruction." " It will," he continues, " require some very 
strong impulse to decide what may be called the upper stratum 
of the middle class to accept for their families any education 
which almost appears a descent in the social scale. And yet 
it is precisely this class which is the most palpable sufferer 
under the present system. . . . When the young manufacturer 
or banker begins what is to be the real business of his existence, 
he leaves irrevocably behind him every object to which his ten 
(or more) early years have been devoted, retaining little beyond 
some taste in which only the idle or the independent can indidge 
with impunity, and a certain dim conceit of his own superiority 
over his fellows, who have only received a commercial training." 
* * * * # 

" There are too many flagrant examples in the history of 
the human mind of the persistent adherence, not only of public 
opinion and private judgment, but of the religious conscience 
and the moral sense, to forms and ceremonies after the belief 
on which they were founded have faded into shadows, to permit 
the hope that any amount of negative experience will bring about 
a reformation in the matter we are now considering. It is solely 
to a growing conviction of the necessity of larger and wiser instruc- 
tion of our governing classes, if they are to remain our governors, 
that we must look as the source of any beneficial change." 



8 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

After sketching the extreme self-satisfaction with which 
we regard the character of the present English gentleman, 
and the notion that he is an ideal of humanity which it is 
almost sinful to desire to improve or transcend, and that if he 
in his youth were taught more or otherwise than he learns at 
present some mysterious degradation would inevitably ensue, 
Lord Houghton declares that there never was a greater eon- 
fusion of post hoc with propter hoc than the theory that the 
English gentleman's actual excellent characteristics have 
anything to do with the method of instruction which has been 
imparted to him. " It is admitted," he says, " that he may 
become a landed proprietor without a notion of agriculture — a 
coal-owner without an inkling of geology — a sportsman without 
curiosity in natural history — a legislator without the elements 
of law ; it is assumed that he may frequent foreign countries 
without having even a convenient intimacy with their language, 
and continually incur that ridicule which is especially disagree- 
able to his nature ; and yet, in the face of all these admissions,* 
every attempt to supply these deficiencies is regarded as little 
less than revolutionary." 

Such is the indictment of " the classical education " drawn 
up fifty years ago by a great " man of the world," one who 
knew perhaps more intimately than any man of his day, or of 
later years, both what he was condemning and what he desired 
to substitute for it. 

We are frequently told that of late years there have been 
great changes in these matters, that science and modern studies 
have been " introduced " into the great public schools. It 
is, on the contrary, the fact that " the classical education " 
still dominates, still continues its hopeless and injurious 
sacrifice of the golden hours of youth to its ill-eontrived methods 
of teaching and its wasteful and unsuccessful attempt to develop 
the intelligence of English boys by forcing upon them, necessarily 
to the exclusion of other subjects, a mechanical study of the 
language, literature, and history of the ancient Greeks and 
Romans. This system continues, although it is universally 
admitted that it completely fails to impart even a modicum of 
knowledge of these subjects — worthless though it would be 

* And we might add'to this list his ready admission of and satisfaction 
with the fact that he knows nothing of the beauties of the English language 
and its literature. — E. R. L. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

were it gained — to the great majority of those submitted 
to it. 

If one wishes to know what is the amount of the concession 
which has been made in our great schools to the demand for 
education in the Natural Sciences, one has only to note how 
small is the number of hours a week assigned to those sciences 
for all boys in the school, how few is the number of masters 
employed, how inferior their position, how little is the reward 
and encouragement for scholars, and how small the pay 
accorded to all concerned in Natural Science as compared with 
the corresponding figures relating to the arrangements made 
for the dominating, monopolizing, " classical " studies. 

The Natural Sciences will not obtain the attention and 
position in schools which is necessary for our national welfare 
until the ancient traditional " classical curriculum " is not 
merely modified and reformed but literally swept away. 
This, of course, would not in any way interfere with the serious 
study in this country of classical literature and classical 
archaeology, but, on the contrary, assist its development. 

The most interesting and in many respects the most 
valuable of the seven lectures now reprinted is that by 
the great Faraday. I should have been content to reprint 
this lecture by itself, but Mr. Heinemann was willing to re- 
produce the whole series. Not the least of the features 
of interest attaching to these lectures is the presentation 
in each of them of the conclusions and opinions held by 
an authority in his subject three-quarters of a century ago. 
In regard to some of the subjects — for instance, Chemistry 
treated by Professor Daubeny of Oxford, and Physiology 
dealt with by Sir James (then Mr.) Paget — the progress of 
knowledge has been so great in the interval that much of what 
is said by the lecturer is not precisely what he would say 
were he speaking to-day. Facts have been ascertained and 
theories established to which he would have made allusion. 
But the spirit and purpose of his discourse is none the less of 
value to-day as it was when given. 

It would be foreign to my present object to annotate the 
lectures of these great advocates of educational reform so as 
to show in what respects investigation has progressed since 
their day. It was my privilege in early years to listen to the 



10 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

teaching of some of them and to know all of them as friends 
of my father. I am glad to be able to reproduce to-day their 
testimony in favour of the reform in education which consists 
in giving a leading place in it to a well-considered study of 
Natural Science — whilst abolishing altogether the hopeless 
waste of time and effort arising from the bad methods and 
mistaken purpose of the traditional study of Latin and Greek. 

In the case of Faraday's lecture on " Mental Education," 
I have been so much impressed by its beauty, interest, and value 
that I have looked up and made notes relating to one or two 
matters which are referred to in it, but are obscure to a modern 
reader— such, for instance, as " The Pasilalinic Compass." 
I have also, with the aid of my friend Mr. Mark Barr, written 
some notes which will render some of Faraday's references to 
his own researches intelligible. These several notes are referred 
to in the text by letters of the alphabet and are printed at the 
end of the lecture. 

Faraday was a vigorous opponent of the various fanciful 
notions as to table-turning, spirit-rapping, and animal magnetism 
current in his day. The modern " occultist " will not hesitate 
to endeavour to weaken Faraday's " authority " in that 
opposition by pointing to the fact that he is careful " to claim 
an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief," 
and that he says, " I shall be reproached with the weakness of 
refusing to apply those mental operations which I think good 
in respect of high things to the very highest." 

Let me at once plainly say that in the Court of Science 
evidence as to personal authority is not admitted. 

The conclusiveness of an experimental demonstration and 
the value of the experimental method are not affected either 
by the religious beliefs or private opinions of the individual 
to whom we are indebted for the demonstration, provided 
that it is a demonstration. The opinions of Sir William Crook es, 
of Sir Oliver Lodge, and the late Dr. Russel Wallace with 
reference to so-called " spiritualism " have not in the smallest 
degree lessened the value of their contributions to Chemistry, 
Physics, and Zoology- ( ' ■ 

E. RAY LANKESTER 

October 2, 1 16 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION 

When the Managers of the Royal Institution decided, early in 
the present year, upon the delivery, after Easter, of a series 
of Lectures on Education, they appointed a sub-Committee to 
make the necessary arrangements. 

In accordance with the usual practice of the Royal Institution, 
the number of the Lectures was unavoidably limited by the 
number of weeks between Easter and the termination of the 
session ; and the subjects of the Lectures could not be alto- 
gether determined by the Committee, but in some instances 
were necessarily left to the choice of the Lecturers. Each 
Lecturer, also, was at perfect liberty to treat his subject in his 
own mode ; and no communication upon the course to be 
pursued took place between the different Lecturers. 

Hence arises the limitation of the subjects and the want of 
mutual connexion between the separate members of the group 
of discourses here presented to the reader. Whatever advantage 
may be thus lost is, however, perhaps counterbalanced by the 
increased authority which is derived from so many and such 
considerable names being found pleading together, though 
independently of each other, the important cause of Scientific 
Education. 

It appeared desirable to the Managers that the widest cir- 
culation should be given to these Lectures ; and each Lecturer, 
by placing his manuscript at the disposal of the Committee, has 
conferred an additional favour on the Members of the Royal 
Institution, and has rendered possible the publication of the 
present volume, which it is hoped will materially assist in 
promoting the extension of Scientific Education among all 
classes of the community. 

Royal Institution 
October 1854 

11 



BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THE 
LECTURERS 

Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle, chemist and botanist, was 
born in Gloucestershire in 1795, and educated at Winchester 
and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he became Professor of 
Chemistry and also of Botany. Daubeny devoted himself 
chiefly to the study of natural phenomena in their relation to 
chemical science. His chief work is A Description of Active 
and Extinct Volcanoes (1826), but he wrote also on the Atomic 
Theory, on Agriculture and Climate, as well as many papers on 
botanical subjects. He died in 1867. 

Faraday, Michael, was born in London in 1791. His father 
was a blacksmith and he often spoke of his love for a smith's 
shop and the work of the forge and hammer. At the age of 
13 he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, but becoming interested 
in science, he attended lectures at the Royal Institution, and in 
1813 became laboratory assistant to Sir Humphry Davy. He 
soon began research work on his own account, and a series of 
experiments on chlorine compounds and the liquefaction of gases 
led to his discovery of principles of great importance. In 
1827 he succeeded Sir Humphry Davy as Fullerian Professor 
of Chemistry, a position which he retained until 1865. 

Faraday made many discoveries in chemistry and experi- 
mental physics, but the great work of his life is the series of 
experiments which, for forty years, he carried on in the domain 
of electro-magnetism. His discoveries were of great value 
and have laid the foundations of our knowledge of electricity. 
It was Faraday's discovery that an electric current is in- 
duced by the rotation of a magnet in the neighbourhood of 
an induction coil which led to the invention of the dynamo. 
Michael Faraday was a master of clear and lucid exposi- 

13 



14 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

tion, and his lectures at the Royal Institution are models of 
simplicity and happy illustration. He held very high what he 
spoke of as " the honour of a philosopher." He died at Hamp- 
ton Court in 1867. 

Hodgson, William Ballantyne, educational reformer 
and political economist, was born at Edinburgh in 1815, the 
son of a printer. He entered the Edinburgh High School, and 
after working for some time in a lawyer's office proceeded to 
Edinburgh University. In 1844, after a period spent in 
lecturing on literature, education, and phrenology in various 
towns of Scotland, he became principal of the Liverpool Insti- 
tute, and in 1847 went from there to the Chorlton High School, 
Manchester, where he remained until 1851. He lectured on 
economics at the Royal Institution in London and was examiner 
in political economy in the London University from 1863 to 
1868. In 1871 he returned to Edinburgh to fill the new chair of 
commercial and political economy and mercantile law which 
had been founded very largely as a result of his own efforts, and 
this post he held until his death in 1880. He was president of 
the Educational Institute of Scotland in 1875. 

Latham, Robert Gordon, M.D., was born in 1812, and 
educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. He studied 
philology in Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Christiania, and in 1839 
was elected professor of English Language and Literature in 
University College, London. Some years later he entered the 
medical profession and obtained the degree of M.D. at the 
University of London, but he soon abandoned medicine and 
devoted himself almost entirely to his favourite pursuits of 
ethnology and philology. Latham was the author of many 
works on the English language. He died at Putney in 
1888. 

Paget, Sir James, Bart., one of the greatest surgeons and 
pathologists of modern times, was born at Yarmouth in 1814. 
He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1875, 
Bradshawe Lecturer in 1882, Sergeant-Surgeon to Queen 
Victoria and Consulting Surgeon to King Edward VII* when 
the latter was Prince of Wales. His two chief works are 
Lectures on Surgical Pathology (1853) and Clinical Lectures 
(1875). He died in 1899. 



BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THE LECTURERS 15 

Tyndall, John, physicist, was bom in Ireland in 1820, the 
son of a small tradesman. After working for some years on 
the ordnance survey, and as a railway engineer in Manchester, 
he went to Germany, where he studied at Marburg and in 
Berlin, carrying on "researches in physical science. He was 
elected F.R.S. in 1852, and in the following year became pro- 
fessor at the Royal Institution. A visit to the Alps, made in 
company with Professor Huxley in 1856, resulted in the famous 
work on the structure and motion of glaciers, and in 1859 he 
began those investigations into the phenomena of radiation 
upon which his fame chiefly rests. Tyndall was an extremely 
iable lecturer and writer, his style being distinguished by 
' vigour and lucidity of expression. His best-known works are 
\Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion (1863), Fragments of 
Science for Unscientific People (1871), and Hours of Exercise 
in the Alps (1873), but he wrote many other books, including 
volumes on Light, Sound, Electricity, and the Forms of Water 
in Clouds, Rivers, Ice, and Glaciers. His works have been 
translated into most European languages. Tyndall died in 
1893. 

Whewell, William, D.D., was born at Lancaster in 1794, 
the son of a joiner. He was educated at the " Blue School " in 
Lancaster, and afterwards at Heversham Grammar School, 
whence he proceeded, as an exhibitioner, to Trinity College, 
Cambridge. His career at the University was exception- 
ally brilliant. He gained the Chancellor's medal for the English 
prize poem in 1814 ; two years later he graduated as second 
wrangler and second Smith's prizeman, and became a Fellow 
and Tutor of Trinity. In subsequent years he filled the chairs 
of Mineralogy and Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. In 1841 he 
married and became Master of Trinity, and in 1855 was Vice- 
Chancellor of the University. He was a prolific and lucid writer 
and lecturer, producing works on astronomy, electricity and 
magnetism, moral philosophy and ethics. His most valuable 
and readable book is that on The History and Philosophy of 
the Inductive Sciences. He died at Trinity in 1866. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION. By SIR E. RAY LANKESTER 

PREFACE 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THE LECTURERS 



PAGE 

5 
11 
13 



19 



39 



75 



LECTURE I 

ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPON INTELLECTUAL 
EDUCATION. BY W. WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S. 

LECTURE II 

OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION. BY PROFESSOR FARADAY, LL.D., 
F.R.S. 

LECTURE III 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCA- 
TION FOR ALL CLASSES. BY ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S. 

LECTURE IV 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCA- 
TION FOR ALL CLASSES BY CHARLES G. B. DAUBENY, M.D., F.R.S. 



LECTURE V 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSICS AS A BRANCH OF EDUCA 

TION FOR AT.T, CLASSES. BY PROFESSOR TYNDALL, F.R.S. 120 

LECTURE VI 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCA- 
TION FOR ALL CLASSES. BY JAMBS PAGET, F.R.S. 143 

LECTURE VII 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BRANCH 

OF EDUCATION FOR 'ALL CLASSES. BY W. B. HODGSON, LL.D. 170 

17 . A * 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORY OF 

SCIENCE UPON INTELLECTUAL 

EDUCATION 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT 
BRITAIN, BEFORE H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT 

By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S. 

Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 

The managers of the Royal Institution having determined to 
provide for their members and others a series of Lectures upon 
Education, and having expressed their wish that I should offer to 
the audience here assembled any views which may appear to 
me suited to such a purpose, I venture to do so, relying upon an 
indulgence which I have more than once experienced here on 
similar occasions. Of such indulgence I strongly feel the need, 
on various accounts, but especially on these two — first, that 
being so unfrequently in this metropolis, I do not know what 
trains of thought are passing in the minds of the greater part 
of my audience, who live in the midst of a stimulation produced 
by the lively interchange of opinion and discussion on the 
prominent questions of the day, to one of which what I have 
now to say in a great degree refers ; and next, that in this hall, 
where you are accustomed to listen to the most lively explana- 
tions of scientific discoveries, illustrated by the most skilful and 
striking experiments, / have to present to you a series of remarks 
on subjects more or less abstract and vague, without being 
able to aid my exposition by anything addressed to the eye. 
The pictures which words can give of abstruse and general 
mental conceptions, when they alone form a diorama on which 
the mental eye of an assembly is to be directed for a whole 
hour, always appears to me to be in great danger of fading 
away into a dream of cloudland or a vacant blank. However, 

19 



20 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

as to that point, I have an advantage in speaking on the History 
of Science, which is my present subject in this room. To those 
of yon who are in the habit of coming here, the walls must 
appear, from their customary aspect, to be hung with pictures 
which illustrate my theme. The striking facts in the history of 
science which you have presented to you in this place, week 
after week, are illustrations, in particular cases, of the general 
views which I have to offer to you ; and if such expressions 
as experience and theory, discovery and generalization, Baconian 
ascents to comprehensive axioms, and descents thence to wonderful 
works — if such expressions be in danger of being to others vague 
and empty sounds, to you they will be, I may trust, all enlivened 
and embodied by what you have again and again seen here. 

The subject on which I am desirous of making a few remarks 
to you at present is this : The Influence of Scientific Discovery 
upon Intellectual Education — the influence of the scientific dis- 
coveries of any period upon the intellectual education of the 
succeeding period ; the influence, that is, of the intellectual 
achievements of one or two gifted men, at various epochs of the 
world's history, upon all those persons, in the next succeeding 
generations, who have aimed to obtain, for themselves or for 
their children, the highest culture, the best discipline, of which 
man's intellectual faculties are capable. I wish to show that 
there has been such an influence, and that it has been great 
at all periods ; that is, at all those periods of intellectual 
energy and activity which come within the conditions of the 
terms ; — all periods which have been periods of discovery. 
I wish to show that this influence has been so great that its 
results constitute, at this day, the whole of our intellectual 
education ; — that in virtue of this influence, intellectual educa- 
tion has been, for those who avail themselves of the means 
which time has accumulated, progressive ; — that our intellectual 
education now, to be worthy of the time, ought to include in its 
compass elements contributed to it in every one of the great 
epochs of mental energy which the world has seen ; — that in 
this respect, most especially, we are, if we know how to use our 
advantage, inheritors of the wealth of all the richest times ; 
strong in the power of the giants of all ages ; placed on the 
summit of an edifice which thirty centuries have been employed 
in building. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 21 

Perhaps I shall most simply make myself intelligible by stating 
plainly and frankly a proposition which I wish to illustrate by 
various examples, as it has been exemplified in various ages and 
countries. The proposition is this : That every great advance 
in intellectual education has been the effect of some considerable 
scientific discovery, or group of discoveries. Every improvement 
of the mental discipline of those who stand in the forefront of 
humanity has followed some signal victory of their leaders ; 
every addition to the means of intellectual culture has been the 
result of some extraordinary harvest, some more than ordinary 
bounty of the intellectual soil, bestowed on the preceding years. 

Without further preface, let us proceed to examples. The 
first great attempt made for the improvement of intellectual 
education, so far as history tells us, was that undertaken and 
prosecuted with persevering vigour by Socrates and Plato. The 
aim of those philosophers was, I say, mainly and peculiarly, an 
improvement of the intellectual education of their countrymen. 
The Athenians of that time, — I mean the more eminent and 
affluent classes of them, — had already an education in a very 
considerable degree elaborate, and large and elevated in its 
promises. The persons by whom this education was, in its 
higher departments, conducted — the teachers whom Socrates 
and Plato perseveringly opposed — have been habitually called 
the Sophists ; because, though at the time their ascendancy 
was immense, in the course of ages Plato's writings have super- 
seded theirs, and he so describes them. But it has been shown 
recently, in the most luminous and striking manner, by one 
among ourselves, that the education which these teachers 
professed to give, and frequently gave, was precisely what we 
commonly mean by a good education. It was an education 
enabling a young man to write well, speak well, and act efficiently 
on all ordinary occasions, public and private. The moral 
doctrines which they taught, even according to the most un- 
favourable representation of them, were no worse than the moral 
doctrines which are most commonly taught among ourselves at 
the present day,— the morality founded upon utility ; but many 
of them repudiated this doctrine as sordid and narrow, and 
professed higher principles, which they delivered in graceful 
literary forms, some of which are still extant in the books 
which we put in the hands of the young. 



22 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Such were the Sophists, against whom Socrates and Plato 
carried on their warfare. And why did Socrates and Plato 
contend against these teachers ; and how was it that they 
contended so successfully that the sympathy of all posterity 
has been with them in their opposition ? It was because 
Socrates and Plato sought for solid principles in this specious 
teaching, and found none. It was because, while these 
professors of speaking well and acting well imparted their 
precepts to their pupils, and exemplified them by their practice, 
they could not bear the keen cross-questioning of Socrates, 
when he tried to make them tell what it was to speak well and 
to act well ; they could not tell Plato what was that " First 
Good, First Perfect, and First Fair," from which everything 
else derived goodness, beauty, and perfection. Socrates and 
Plato were not content with illustrations, they asked for 
principles ; they were not content with rhetoric, they wanted 
demonstration ; it was not enough for them that these men 
taught the young Athenian to persuade others, they wanted to 
have him know, and to know toJiat he knew. These were the 
demands, as many of you will recollect, that recur again and 
again in the Platonic Dialogues. This is the tendency of all the 
trains of irresistible logic which are put in the mouth of Plato's 
imaginary Socrates. What do we know ? How do we know 
it ? By what reasoning ? ■ From what principles ? These 
questions are perpetually asked. They are never completely 
answered. The respondent always breaks down at some 
point or other ; and then Socrates says, with his calm irony, 
" How disappointing ! How vexatious ! We are where we 
were ! We must begin again. We have not yet found what 
we were seeking. We have not yet got hold of the real and 
essential truth." 

And what was it that had put Socrates and Plato upon this 
eager and obstinate search of a real and essential truth ? How 
was it they could not be satisfied without it ? Why might not 
that which had been taught by the wise and eloquent men of 
previous generations suffice for their generation ? Why must 
their inquiries go further than the inquiries of their ancestors 
had done ? This real and essential truth which they sought, 
what had put the notion of it into their heads ? What had made 
them think that such a thing could be found ? Had they 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 23 

seen any example of such truth ; had they seen any specimen 
of this treasure which they sought for with so vehement and 
persevering a quest ? 

Yes : for this is the point to which I wish to draw your 
attention ; they had seen specimens of this treasure. They 
had had placed before them examples of real and certain truth ; 
they had been admitted to contemplate clear and indisputable 
truths ; truths which they could demonstrate to be true ; 
truths which they could trace to principles of intuitive evidence ; 
truths which it did not appear to be speaking too highly of 
if they called them necessary and eternal. 

Such truths they had already seen and known ; for they hac 
known some of the truths of geometry. No doubt some of these 
truths, — the truths of geometry, — some casual and happy 
guesses — had been known at a much earlier period. Pythagoras 
had known that the squares on the two sides of a right angled 
triangle are equal to the square on the third. But the lore 
of Pythagoras, imparted in a mysterious manner to an initiated 
few, had long crept stealthily among the secret societies of the 
Italian coast, and hardly made its way, in any considerable 
degree, into Greece, till it was introduced by Plato and his 
friends. But the age of Plato was an age of great geometrical 
discovery in Greece. The general body of geometry, such as it 
exists to this day, was then constructed. Plato himself was an 
eminent geometer, not only by geometrical discoveries 
which he made, but still more by his clear and strong perception 
of the importance of the study. He repeatedly exhorts his 
fellow-countrymen to pursue this study ; he promises that it 
shall lead them to a true view of the heavens ; he discerns how 
this is to be done ; he points out new branches of mathematical 
science which must be constructed for this purpose ; he re- 
peatedly refers to the Definitions, the Axioms, the Proofs of 
Geometrical Propositions ; he writes over the gate of the 
gardens of Academus, where his disciples meet to listen to his 
teaching — OvBeis ayeojj.irpT]Tos exa-erw, " Let no one enter who 
is destitute of Geometry." 

And why this requirement ? Why this prohibition ? What 
was the need of Geometry for his disciples ? What use was he 
to make of it ? What inference was he to draw from it when 
they had it ? 



24 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Precisely the inference which I have mentioned : — that there 
was a certain and solid truth ; a knowledge which was not mere 
opinion ; science which was more than seeming ; that man has 
powers by which such truth, such knowledge, such science, may 
be acquired ; that therefore it ought to be sought, not in 
geometry alone, but in other subjects also ; that since man can 
know, certainly and clearly, about straight and curved in the 
world of space, he ought to know, — he ought not to be content 
without knowing, — no less clearly and certainly, about right 
and wrong in the world of human action. That man has such 
powers was the beginning of Plato's philosophy. To use 
them for such purposes was the constant aim of his mental 
activity. The impression which had been left upon his mind 
by the geometrical achievements of his contemporaries, 
and by those which he himself began, was that the powers by 
which such discoveries are made are evidences of the exalted 
nature of the human mind ; of its vast profundity ; of its 
lofty destiny. He repeatedly, and with obvious gratification, 
refers to geometrical truths as evidences of the nature of the 
human mind, and even of its hope of immortality. Since 
the mind can thus reason to certain truths, it must have in it the 
principles of truth ; and whence did it derive them ? Since it 
can know what it has not learned from the senses, it must have 
some other source of knowledge ; and how much is implied in 
this ! Since it can conceive and bring forth eternal truths, 
how can it be the child of a day, a transient creature, born one 
moment and perishing the next ? 

Perhaps it may serve to add distinctness to the account I 
am trying to give you of Plato's teaching if I give you, in 
his own way, an example of this teaching of his. It shall be 
very brief. In Plato's Dialogue called Meno, Socrates, in 
discourse with Meno the Thessalian, is trying to discover 
what Virtue is : and pressing his inquiry from point to point, 
and finding the truth perpetually escape him, he is led to ask 
at last, "What is meant by discovering anything ? Can we do 
it ? If so, how ? " And on this, with more of' direct assertion 
than he commonly ventures upon, he declares that we can do 
it, and that he will show how we do it. He calls up a young 
and intelligent boy, an attendant of Meno, and he propounds 
to him a geometrical problem, simple, yet not quite obvious. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 25 

He draws a diagram in the sand, and asks him various questions 
as to the lines which serve to illustrate this problem : and the 
boy, though at first he says he does not know, is soon led to 
answer rightly to these interrogations, by his natural appre- 
hension of the relations of space. At every step, Socrates says, 
" You see I tell him nothing. He goes on towards the truth, 
but I do not teach him. He finds it in his own mind. He does 
not learn from another, he recollects what he has already 
known. His knowledge is recollection. His science is remi- 
niscence." * 

This doctrine — that knowledge is recollection, that science 
is reminiscence — is the main result deduced in the Meno from 
this geometrical investigation. In that Dialogue, as I have 
said, the doctrine is applied to illustrate the nature of the 
discovery of truth in general. In the Phedo — that Dialogue 
which has so deeply moved thoughtful men in every age, in 
which Socrates, standing before the gates of death, reasons 
with his weeping friends as to what he shall find beyond them — 
this same doctrine is employed to warm their hopes and elevate 
their thoughts. Since, it is argued, the soul thus contains in 
itself the principles of eternal truth, it must be itself eternal. 
But it is not with this purpose that I here refer to the use 
thus made of geometrical reasoning. My object is to establish 
this view : — that the great step in pure scientific discovery 
made by the Greeks of Plato's time, — the construction of a con- 
nected and comprehensive body of geometrical truth, — led to the 
conviction that geometry was an immensely valuable element 
in intellectual education. The apprehensions of such truths 
threw a new light upon the nature of all truth, and the means 
of attaining to it. It was seen that, thenceforth, they who 
were altogether ignorant of geometry were destitute of the 
best means then known of showing them what is the genuine 
aspect of essential truth, — what is the nature of the intellectual 
vision by which it is seen, — what is the consciousness of intuitive 
power on which its foundations rest. And thus, in virtue of the 
geometrical discoveries of the Platonic epoch, geometry became 
a part of the discipline of the Platonic school ; — became the 
starting-point of the Platonic reformation of the intellectual 

* This portion of Plato's Dialogue, the Meno, was given briefly in the Lecture, 
a diagram being exhibited. See Note, p. 37. 



26 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

education of Athens ; — became an element of a liberal education. 
And not only became so then, but has continued so to this day : 
so that among ourselves, and in every other country of high 
cultivation, no education is held to be raised on good founda- 
tions which does not include geometry, — elementary geometry, 
at least, — among its component portions. And thus, in our 
Education, as in our Science, the completest form, in the 
latest time, includes and assumes the earliest steps of real 
progress : and this is so, in the one case as in the other, because 
the one must always depend on the other ; because the progress 
of Education is affected, at every great and principal step, by 
the progress of Science. 

You will not be surprised to be thus told that our modern 
education has derived something from the ancient Greek 
education, because you know that our modern science has 
derived much from the ancient Greek science. You know that 
our science, in the ordinary sense of the term, has derived little 
from the ancient Romans ; — little, that is, which is original ; 
and therefore you will not be surprised if our education has 
derived little from the Roman education. If the fact were so, 
it would still be a negative illustration of the doctrine which I 
am trying to elucidate ; — the dependence of the progress of 
education on the progress of science. But if we take the term 
science in a somewhat wider acceptation, we shall derive from 
the Roman history, not a negative, but a positive exemplification 
of our proposition. For in that wider sense there is a science 
of which Rome was the mother, as Greece was of geometry and 
mathematics. The term Science may be extended so widety as 
to allow us to speak of the Science of Law — meaning the doctrine 
of Rights and Obligations, in its most definite and yet most 
comprehensive form ; — in short, the Science of Jurisprudence. 
In this Science the Romans were really great discoverers : or 
rather, it was they who made the subject a Science — who gave 
it the precision of a Science, the generality of a science, the 
method of a Science. And how effectually they did this we 
may judge from the fact that the jurisprudence of Rome is 
still the basis, the model, the guide, the core of the jurisprudence 
of every civilized country ; — of our own, less than most, but 
still, in no small degree, of our own. The imitators and pupils 
of the Greeks in every other department of human speculation, 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 27 

in jurisprudence the Romans felt themselves their masters. 
Cicero says, proudly, but not too proudly, that a single page 
of a Roman jurist contained more solid and exact matter than 
a whole library of Greek philosophers. The labours of jurists 
deserving this character, which thus began before Cicero, 
continued through the empire, to its fall ;— continued even 
beyond its fall. As Horace tells us that captive Greece captived 
the conqueror and taught him arts ; so Rome subdued, subdued 
the victor hordes, and taught them law. The laws of Rome 
gave method to the codes of the northern nations, and are 
the origin of much that is most scientific in the more recent 
systems of legislation. That general law is a science we owe 
to the Romans ; and we in England may be reminded of this 
by our inability to translate the Roman word by which this 
science is described : for though the term jus is the root of 
jurist, and jurisprudence, and the like, it is, as yet, hardly 
naturalized in its technical sense, as designating the general 
Doctrine of Rights and Obligations : nor have we any word 
which has that meaning, as Droit has in French, and Recht in 
German. 

Here is a great science, then, of which the discoverers were the 
Romans : can we trace, as according to our view we ought to be 
able to trace, any corresponding great step in intellectual 
discipline ? Was jus a prominent part of Roman education ? 
Is Roman jurisprudence a prominent part in the liberal educa- 
tion in modern times? To both these questions we must 
answer most emphatically, Yes. The law of Rome was the 
main part of the education of the Roman youth. Cicero 
reminds his brother Quintius that they had learnt the old laws 
and the formulae of legal proceedings by heart, as a -sort of 
domestic catechism or nursery rhyme. Every Roman of 
eminence spent the early part of his morning in giving legal 
opinions to his clients :— not like our Justices of the Peace, when 
appealed to as a magistrate, but as an adviser and protector : 
and every young member of the aristocracy had to fit himself 
for this office. Every young Roman of condition was a Roman 
jurist. And the study of the law, thus made a leading branch 
of a liberal education, continued so through the Middle Ages- 
continues so still. It occupied the great Italian universities — 
Bologna, Pisa, Padua, and the like— in the darkest parts of the 



28 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Dark Ages. It occupies most of the universities of Europe to 
this day. The Roman law is still the main element of the 
liberal education of Italy, of Germany, of Greece, and, in some 
degree, even of France and Spain. In Germany its prevalence 
has been such that in recent times all the great moral contro- 
versies have been debated in the most strenuous and searching 
manner in terms of the Civil Law, as the Roman law is still 
called all over Europe. And we shall hardly doubt, if we look 
into the matter, that these legal studies have given to the well- 
educated men of those countries a precision of thought and an 
exactness of logic on moral subjects which, without such a 
study, would not have been likely to prevail. To define a 
Right or Obligation, to use proper terms in framing a law, in 
delivering a judicial sentence, in giving a legal opinion, is pre- 
cisely the merit of an accomplished jurist ; as is emphatically 
asserted by Cicero. And even our own law, fragmentary and 
unscientific as it is, is not without a value of the same kind, as an 
instrument of a liberal education. It may be a means of giving 
exactness to the thoughts, method and clearness to the reasoning, 
precision to the expressions of men, on the general interests of 
man and of society ; and is so recommended, and often so 
employed, by those who are preparing for active life. Of the 
moral sciences, without some study of which no education can 
be complete, the science of jurisprudence is most truly a science, 
and most effectually a means of intellectual discipline. And, as 
you see, the use of such discipline in education dates from the 
period of that great advance in speculation on moral subjects 
and social relations by which jurisprudence became a science. 
And thus two of the great elements of a thorough intellectual 
culture, Mathematics and Jurisprudence, are an inheritance 
which we derive from ages long gone by ; from two great 
nations ; from the two great nations of antiquity. They are 
the results of ancient triumphs of man's spirit over the confusion 
and obscurity of the aspects of the external world ; and even 
over the waywardness and unregulated impulses of his own 
nature, and the entanglements and conflicts of human society. 
And being true sciences they were well fitted to become, as 
they became, and were fitted to continue, as they have hitherto 
continued, to be main elements in that discipline by which man 
is to raise himself above himself; is to raise, — since that is 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 29 

especially what we have now to consider, — his intellect into a 
habitual condition, superior to the rudeness, dimness, confusion, 
laxity, insecurity, to which the undisciplined impulses of 
human thought in all ages and nations commonly lead. 

x\nd before we proceed any further, let us consider, for an 
instant, that such an education, consisting of the elements 
which I have mentioned, might be, and would be, in well- 
conducted cases, an education of no common excellence, even 
according to our present standard of a good' intellectual educa- 
tion. A mind well disciplined in elementary geometry and in 
general jurisprudence would be as well prepared as mere dis- 
cipline can make a mind for most trains of human speculation 
and reasoning. The mathematical portion of such an education 
would give clear habits of logical deduction, and a perception 
of the delight of demonstration ; while the moral portion of the 
education, as we may call jurisprudence, would guard the mind 
from the defect, sometimes ascribed to mere mathematicians, of 
seeing none but mathematical proofs, and applying to all cases 
mathematical processes. A young man well imbued with these, 
the leading elements of Athenian and Roman culttire, would, 
we need not fear to say, be superior in intellectual discipline 
to three-fourths of the young men of our own day, on whom all 
the ordinary appliances of what is called a good education have 
been bestowed. Geometer and jurist, the pupil formed by this 
culture of the old world, might make no bad figure among the 
men of letters or of science, the lawyers and the politicians of 
our own times. 

But there is another remark which I must make, tending to 
show the defect of this education of antiquity, as compared with 
the intellectual education of our own times ; or rather, as com- 
pared with what the education of our own times ought to be. 
The subjects which I have mentioned, geometry and juris- 
prudence, are both deductive sciences — sciences in which, from 
certain first principles, by chains of proof, conclusions are 
deduced which constitute the doctrines of the science. In the 
one case, geometry, these first principles are given by intuition ; 
in the other, jurisprudence, they are either rules instituted by 
authority and consent, or general principles of human nature 
and human society obtained from experience interpreted by our 
own human consciousness. We deduce properties of diagrams 



30 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

from geometrical axioms ; we deduce decisions of cases from 
legal maxims. Jurisprudence, no less than geometry, is a deduc- 
tive science ; and has been compared with geometry, by its 
admirers, for the exactness of its deductive processes. They 
have said (Leibnitz and others) that jural demonstrations are 
as fine examples of logic as mathematical ; and that pure reason 
alone determines every expression of a good jurist, no less than 
a good mathematician ; so that there is no room for that play 
of individual character which shows itself in the difference of 
style of different authors. But however perfectly the habits of 
deduction may be taught by these studies, such teaching cannot, 
according to the enlarged views of modern times, compose a 
complete intellectual culture. Induction, rather than deduc- 
tion, is the source of the great scientific truths which form the 
glory, and fasten on them the admiration of modern times ; 
and a modern education cannot be regarded as giving to the 
intellect that culture which the fullness of time, and the treasures 
of knowledge now accumulated, render suitable and necessary, 
except it convey to the mind an adequate appreciation of and 
familiarity with the inductive process by which those treasures 
of knowledge have been obtained. As the best sciences which 
the ancient world framed supplied the best elements of intel- 
lectual education up to modern times, so the grand step by 
which, in modern times, science has sprung up into a magnitude 
and majesty far superior to her ancient dimensions should 
exercise its influence upon modern education, and contribute 
its proper result to modern intellectual culture. 

Who is to be taken as the representative of the great epoch 
of the progress of science in modern times ; that is, beginning 
from the sixteenth century? In different ways, Galileo, 
Descartes, Bacon, Newton, may seem best suited to occupy that 
position. But Galileo's immediate influence was limited, both 
as to subjects and as to the number of admirers. It was when 
Descartes summed up into a system the discoveries of Galileo 
and his disciples, and added to them inventions of his own, 
some true, many captivating, that the new physical philosophy 
acquired a large and vigorous hold upon Europe north of the 
Alps. In France especially, always eager in its admiration 
of intellectual greatness, Descartes was unhesitatingly regarded 
as the great man who brought in a new and more enlightened 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 31 

age of philosophy. Indeed, for a large portion of philosophy, he 
is still so regarded by French philosophers ; and though his 
influence in metaphysics is to be distinguished from his authority 
in physics, still the ascendancy of his more abstract and general 
philosophical opinions was closely connected with his recog- 
nized eminence as a physical philosopher, and with the admira- 
tion which his system of the universe obtained. The Cartesian 
philosophy was the proclaimed and acknowledged antagonist 
of the Aristotelian philosophy ; it was the new truth of which 
the standard was raised against the old falsehood. Any one 
acquainted with the French literature of the seventeenth cen- 
tury will recollect innumerable illustrations of this view of the 
matter. You remember, perhaps (as an example), the noted 
passage in Fontenelle's lively dialogues on The Plurality of 
Worlds. There, the sages of antiquity, the Pythagorases, 
Platos, Aristotles, are represented as looking at the spectacle 
of the universe like so many spectators in the pit of the Opera 
House looking at the ballet. The subject of the ballet is sup- 
posed to be Phaeton carried away by the winds : and to 
represent this, the dancer who enacts the part of Phaeton is 
made to fly away through the upper part of the scene, to the 
great admiration of the gazers. The more speculative of these 
attempt to explain this extraordinary movement of Phaeton. 
One says, " Phaeton has an occult quality, which carries him 
away." This is the Aristotelian. Another says, " Phaeton 
is composed of certain numbers which make him move upwards." 
This is the Pythagorean. Another says, " Phaeton has a long- 
ing for the top of the theatre. He is not easy till he gets there." 
This is the philosophy which explains the universe by Love and 
Hate. Another says, " Phaeton has not naturally a tendency 
to fly ; but he prefers flying to leaving the top of the scene 
empty." This is the doctrine of the fuga vacui, nature's horror 
of a vacuum. And after all this, says the speaker, comes 
Descartes and some other moderns ; and they say, Phaeton 
goes up, because he is drawn by certain cords, and a weight, 
heavier than he is, goes down behind the scenes. And in truth 
the physical philosophy of Descartes did contain the greater 
part of the true explanation of the phenomena of the universe 
which was known up to this time. It contained the principles 
of Mechanics, with few errors : the principles of Optics, and the 



32 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

beautiful explanation of the rainbow, in the discovery of which 
Descartes had so large a share ; and a true system of Astronomy, 
so far as the mere motions are concerned. And Descrates's 
peculiar invention, the hypothesis of tourbillons — vortices or 
whirlpools of celestial fluid, by which these motions are pro- 
duced — though false, was not only separable from the other 
parts of the system, but was capable, by modifications, of ex- 
pressing many mechanical truths, as the Bernoullis and other 
mathematicians who retained it for a century often showed. In 
England, as in France, the Cartesian philosophy meant the 
Mechanical Philosophy as opposed to the philosophy of sym- 
pathies and antipathies, occult qualities, arbitrary notions of 
Nature, and the like. The Cartesian philosophy, in this sense, 
was introduced into England ; but I doubt whether the doctrine 
of vortices was ever accepted here to any considerable extent. 
It has been made, I may be allowed to say ignorantly and 
absurdly made, an accusation against the University of Cam- 
bridge that the Cartesian system found acceptance there. 
Such an event showed a promptitude in accepting new scientific 
views which has repeatedly been exemplified there. But I 
much doubt whether the Cartesian system was ever presented to 
Cambridge students without a refutation of the vortices being 
put in the notes on the same page. Assuredly it was not taught 
for more than a few years in any other form : but, I believe, not 
at all. And in like manner, in other places, the new mechanical 
philosophy, Cartesian in France, Newtonian in England, rapidly 
superseded the verbal dogmatism of the Middle Ages. 

And with this triumph of the new opinions, as a revolution 
in science, came the introduction of the new doctrines as a 
revolution, or extension, in education. The Cartesian philos- 
ophy, — instantly in England transformed into the Newtonian 
philosophy on the publication of Newton's mighty discoveries, 
— was eagerly received, from its very first appearance, and 
incorporated with the elements of a liberal education, both in 
Newton's own university and elsewhere. And not only were 
the new theories of the solar system rapidly diffused, by means 
of lectures, books, and in other ways ; but the principles by 
which such theories are collected from observation, — the 
principles of that induction, on which this great fabric of science 
rests, — became objects of attention, respect, and praise. Bacon, 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 33 

with his majestic voice, — the trumpeter who stirred up the battle, 
as he himself calls himself, — had already prepared men's minds 
for this feeling of respect and admiration for inductive discovery, 
even while the movement was only beginning : and in this 
country at least, many persons, Gilbert, Cowley, and others, 
had re-echoed the sentiment which he expressed. He had 
declared that knowledge, far more ample and complete than 
had yet been obtained by man, was to be gained by the use of 
new methods of investigation : and the succeeding time, having 
produced noble examples of such knowledge, had made men 
see that they had entered upon a new epoch of science. And 
it was natural and desirable that in this, as in other cases, the 
possession of a body of new truths, and the admiration of the 
method by which these had been acquired, should operate 
upon the culture of the intellect among those who sought the 
best means of such culture — should introduce new elements 
into liberal education — should make it a part of the mental 
discipline of the best taught classes, that they should learn to 
feel the force and see the beauty of inductive reasoning ; as the 
older elements of a liberal education, mathematics and juris- 
prudence, had been employed, among other uses, to make men 
feel the force, and see the beauty, of deductive reasoning. 

And thus we are naturally led to ask, Has this been done ? 
Has education in its most advanced form been thus extended ? 
Is there, in the habitual culture of the intellect, in the best 
system of education, this cultivation of the habit, or at least of 
the appreciation, of inductive teaching in science ? How is 
such culture to be effected ? How are we to judge whether it 
. has been effected ? 

These are very large questions, and yet the time admonishes 
me, if nothing else did, that I must be very brief in any answers 
that I may give to them. I must content myself with a hint 
or two bearing upon the subject. And first, of the mode in 
which this culture of the inductive habit of mind, or at least 
appreciation of the method and its results, is to be promoted ; 
if I might presume to give an opinion, I should say that one 
obvious mode of effecting this discipline of the mind in induction 
is the exact and solid study of some portion of inductive know- 
ledge. I do not mean the mechanical sciences alone, Physical 
Astronomy and the like ; though these undoubtedly have a 



84 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

prerogative value as the instruments of such a culture ; but 
the like effect will be promoted by the exact and solid study 
of any portion of the circle of natural sciences — Botany, Com- 
parative Anatomy, Geology, Chemistry, for instance. But 
I say the exact and solid knowledge ; not a mere verbal know- 
ledge, but a knowledge which is real in its character, though 
it may be elementary and limited in its extent. The knowledge 
of which I speak must be a knowledge of things, and not merely 
of names of things ; an acquaintance with the operations and 
productions of nature, as they appear to the eye, not merely 
an acquaintance with what has been said about them ; a know- 
ledge of the laws of nature, seen in special experiments and 
observations, before they are conceived in general terms ; a 
knowledge of the types of natural forms, gathered from indi- 
vidual cases already made familiar. By such study of one or 
more departments of inductive knowledge the mind may 
escape from the thraldom and illusion which reigns in the world 
of mere words. 

But there is another study which I may venture to mention, 
of a more general and literary kind, also eminently fitted to 
promote an appreciation of the nature and value of the inductive 
treatment of nature. I mean the History of the Natural 
Sciences ; for in such history we see how, in the study of every 
portion of the universe, the human mind has ascended from 
particular facts to general laws ; and yet in every different class 
of phenomena by processes very different, at first sight at least. 
And I mention this study of the history of science, and especially 
recommend it, the rather because it supplies, as I conceive, a 
remedy for some of the evils which, along with great advantages, 
may result from another study which has long been, and at 
present is, extensively employed as an element of a liberal 
education— I mean the study of Logic. The study of Logic is of 
great value as fixing attention upon the conditions of deductive 
proof, and giving systematic and technical views of the forms 
which such proof may assume. But by doing this for all sub- 
jects alike it produces the impression that there is a close 
likeness in the process of investigation of truth in different 
subjects ;— closer than there really is. The examples of reasoning 
given in books of Logic are generally so trifling as to seem a 
mockery of truth-seeking, and so monotonous as to seem idle 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 35 

variations of the same theme. But in the History of Science 
we see the infinite variety of nature ; of mental no less than 
bodily nature ; of the intellectual as well as of the sensible 
world. The modes of generalization of particulars,— of ascent 
from the most actual things to the most abstract ideas, — how 
different are they in botany, in chemistry, in geology, in 
physiology ! — yet all most true and real ; all most certain and 
solid ; all of them genuine and indisputable lines of union and 
connexion, by which the mind of man and the facts of the 
universe are bound together ; by which the universe becomes a 
sphere with intellect for its centre ; by which intellect becomes 
in no small degree able to bend to its purposes the powers of the 
universe. 

The history of science, showing us how this takes place in 
various forms, — ever and ever new, when they seem to have 
been exhausted,— may do, and carefully studied must do, much 
to promote that due apprehension and appreciation of inductive 
discovery : and inductive discovery, now that the process has 
been going on with immense vigour in the nations of Europe 
for the last three hundred years, ought, we venture to say, to 
form a distinct and prominent part of the intellectual education 
of the youth of those nations. And having said this, I have 
given you the ultimate result of the reflections which have 
occurred to me on this subject of intellectual education on 
which I have ventured to address you. And here, therefore, I 
might conclude. But if it did not weary you, I should wish to 
make a remark on the other of the two questions which I asked 
a little while ago. I then asked, How is such a culture to be 
effected ? and also, How are we to judge whether it has been 
effected ? 

With regard to the latter question, the remark which I have 
to make is briefly this : In the inductive sciences, every step 
of generalization is usually marked by some word, which, 
adopted to mark that step, acquires thenceforth a fixed and 
definite meaning ; and is always to be used in the sense so given 
it, not in any other way in which other resemblances or incidents 
may suggest. And the definition of technical words in inductive 
science is contained in the history of the science ; is given by the 
course of previous research and discovery. " The history of 
science is our dictionary ; the steps of scientific induction are 



36 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

our definitions." Now this being so, we may remark that when 
we hear a man, in the course of an argument, asking for Defi- 
nitions, as something by which error is to be avoided and truth 
learned, such a demand is evidence that his intellectual training 
has been deductive, not inductive — logical, not scientific. In 
geometry, and in other demonstrative sciences, Definitions are 
the beginning of the science — the fountains of truth. But it is 
not so in the inductive sciences. In such sciences a Definition 
and a Proposition commonly enter side by side — the definition 
giving exactness to the proposition ; the proposition giving 
reality to the definition. 

But further : — as technical terms, appropriate to a precise and 
steady sense, mark every step of inductive ascent in science, the 
exact and correct use of the technical terms of science is evidence 
of good inductive culture of the mind ; and a vague and im- 
proper use of such terms is evidence of the absence of such 
culture. When we hear men speak, as we often do, of impetus 
and momentum, of gravity and inertia, of centripetal and centri- 
fugal force, and the like, using the terms mostly by guess, — and 
assuming oppositions and relations among them which do not 
exist ; — as, for instance, when they oppose the centrifugal and 
centripetal force, as if they were forces in the same sense ; — we 
cannot help saying that such persons, however ingenious and 
quick they may be in picking a possible meaning out of current 
words by means of their etymology or any other casual light, 
have not the habit of gathering the meaning of scientific words 
from the only true light, the light of induction. 

And this remark may not be without a special use if we 
recollect that there are at present a number of scientific words 
current among us which are applied with the most fantastical 
and wanton vagueness of meaning, or of no meaning. At all 
periods of science, probably, scientific terms are liable to this 
abuse, after scientific discoveries have brought them into 
notoriety, and before the diffusion of science has made their true 
meaning to be generally apprehended. The names, indeed, of 
attraction, gravitation, and the like have probably now risen, 
in a great degree, out of this sphere of confusion and obscurity, 
in which any word may mean anything. But there are words 
— belonging to sciences which have more recently reached 
dignity, — which^ words every one pursuing fancies which are 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON EDUCATION 37 

utterly out of the sphere of science seems to think he may use 
just as he pleases. Magnetism and Electricity, and the terms 
which belong to these sciences, are especially taken possession 
of for such purposes, and applied in cases in which we know that 
the sciences from which the names are " conveyed " have not 
the smallest application. Is Animal Magnetism anything ? 
Let those answer who think they can : but we know that it is 
not Magnetism. When I say we, I mean those who are in the 
habit of seeing in this place the admirable exhibitions of what 
Magnetism is, with which you have long been familiar. And 
assuredly, on the same ground, I may say that you have been 
shown, and know, what Electricity is, and what it can do ; and 
what it cannot do, and what is not Electricity. And having 
had the opportunity of seeing this, you, at least, have so much 
of the culture of the intellect which inductive science supplies 
as not to suppose that your words would have any meaning 
if you were to say of any freak of fancy or will, shown in bodily 
motion or muscular action, that it is a kind of Electricity. 



NOTE TO p. 25 

EXTRACT FROM THE " MENO " OF PLATO 

S. Tell me, boy, do you know that this figure is a square"? — B. Yes, 
I know. 

8. Because all these four lines are equal (its sides) ? — B. Yes. 

8. And also these other two lines are equal, which are drawn lacross the 
middle ? (the diagonals) — B. Yes. 

S. May there be a square greater or less than this ? — B. Yes. 

S. May there be a square twice as great as this ? — B. Yes. 

S. How long must one side be, that the square may be twice as great ? — 
B. Twice as long as the side of the first square. 

You see, Socrates says, I tell him nothing, I only 
ask him questions. And now he thinks he has 
answered right. But I must revive his recollec- 
tion, that he may see his error. — So you say that 
the square on a double line will be double of the 
first square ? You know I mean a square, not a 
figure that is long one way and narrow the other ; 
but as broad as it is long, like this square, only 

twice as large. Now let us fit to one end of the first square a second square- 
which is equal to it. And let us fit two other squares of the same size to the 
sides of those two squares. Then we have a new square, have we not ? — B. Yes. 

S. And how many times is it greater than the first square ? — B. Four 
.times greater. 

S. Not twice as great, which you said ? — B. No : four times. 

S. Well : but how long must the line be that the square upon it may be^ 
twice as great as the first square ? — B. I do not know. 






38 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Now, says Socrates, mark, that out of this not knowing, he will come to 
know, by seeking with me, just as he comes to know when I question him 
without my telling him anything. You will see that I do not give him my 
opinion, I only get at his. — If we draw a line across this first square, from 
corner to corner (the diagonal), it cuts it into two equal parts, does it not ? — 
B. Yes. 

8. And if in this square, which is made up of the four squares, we draw 
the four diagonals, so as to cut off the four outside corners, each of these diagonals 
will cut one of the squares into two halves ? — B. Yes. 

S. And these four diagonals will be equal, and will make a new square ? — 
B. Yes. 

S. And this square is made up of the four inside halves of the four squares, 
is it not ? — B. It is. 

S. But the first square is made up of two such halves, is it not ? — B. Yes. 

S. And how much is four times greater than twice ? — B. The double of it. 

S. Then how many times is the new square greater than the first square ? — 
B. It is the double of it. 

S. Then you have got a square which is the double of the original square ? — 
B. Yes. 

S. Namely, the square upon the diagonal of the original square? — B. Yes. 

You see, Socrates says, he was really possessed of all his knowledge before. 
Those who do not know have still in their minds a latent knowledge. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT 
BRITAIN, BEFORE H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT 

By PROFESSOR FARADAY, LL.D., F.R.S. 

I take courage, Sir, from your presence here this day, to speak 
boldly that which is upon my mind. I feared that it might 
be unpleasant to some of my audience, but as I know that 
your Royal Highness is a champion for and desires the truth, 
I will believe that all here are united in the same cause, and 
therefore will give utterance, without hesitation, to what I 
have to say regarding the present condition of Mental 
Education. 

If the term education may be understood in so large a sense 
as to include all that belongs to the improvement of the mind, 
either by the acquisition of the knowledge of others, or by 
increase of it through its own exertions, then I may hope to be 
justified for bringing forward a few desultory observations 
respecting the exercise of the mental powers in a particular 
direction, which otherwise might seem out of place. The 
points I have in view are general, but they are manifest in a 
striking manner, among the physical matters which have 
occupied my life ; and as the latter afford a field for exercise 
in which cogitations and conclusions can be subjected to the 
rigid tests of fact and experiment — as all classes employ them- 
selves more or less in the consideration of physical matters, 
and may do so with great advantage, if inclined in the least 
degree to profit by educational practices, so I hope that what 
I may say will find its application in every condition of life. 

Before entering upon the subject, I must take one distinction 
which, however it may appear to others, is to me of the utmost 
importance. High as man is placed above the creatures 
around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position 

39 



40 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

within his view ; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies 
his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a 
future life. I believe that the truth of that future cannot be 
brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, 
however exalted they may be ; that it is made known to him 
by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple 
belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a 
moment that the self-education I am about to commend in 
respect of the things of this life extends to any considerations 
of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out 
God. It would be improper here to enter upon this subject 
further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious 
and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness 
of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think 
good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am 
content to bear the reproach. Yet, even in earthly matters, 
I believe that the invisible things of Him from the creation of 
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; and I have 
never seen anything incompatible between those things of man 
which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, 
and those higher things concerning his future which he cannot 
know by that spirit. 

Claiming, then, the use of the ordinary faculties of the mind 
in ordinary things, let me next endeavour to point out what 
appears to me to be a great deficiency in the exercise of the 
mental powers in every direction ; three words will express 
this great want, deficiency of judgment. I do not wish to make 
any startling assertion, but I know that in physical matters 
multitudes are ready to draw conclusions who have little or 
no power of judgment in the cases ; that the same is true of 
other departments of knowledge ; and that, generally, mankind 
is willing to leave the faculties which relate to judgment almost 
entirely uneducated, and their decisions at the mercy of 
ignorance, prepossessions, the passions, or even accident. 

Do not suppose, because I stand here and speak thus, making 
no exceptions, that I except myself. I have learned to know 
that I fall infinitely short of that efficacious exercise of the 
judgment which may be attained. There are exceptions to 
my general conclusion, numerous and high ; but if we desire 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 41 

to know how far education is required, we do not consider the 
few who need it not, but the many who have it not ; and in 
respect of judgment, the number of the latter is almost infinite. 
I am moreover persuaded that the clear and powerful minds 
which have realized in some degree the intellectual preparation 
I am about to refer to, will admit its importance, and indeed 
its necessity ; and that they will not except themselves, nor 
think that I have made my statement too extensive. 

As I believe that a very large proportion of the errors we 
make in judgment is a simple and direct result of our perfectly 
unconscious state, and think that a demonstration of the 
liabilities we are subject to would aid greatly in providing a 
remedy, I will proceed first to a few illustrations of a physical 
nature. Nothing can better supply them than the intimations 
we derive from our senses ; to them we trust directly, by 
them we become acquainted with external things, and gain 
the power of increasing and varying facts upon which we 
entirely depend. Our sense perceptions are wonderful. Even 
in the observant but unreflective infant they soon produce a 
result which looks like intuition, because of its perfection. 
Coming to the mind as so many data, they are stored up, and 
without our being conscious of it are ever after used in like 
circumstances in forming our judgment ; and it is not wonderful 
that man is accustomed to trust them without examination. 
Nevertheless, the result is the effect of education : the mind 
has to be instructed with regard to the senses and their intima- 
tions through every step of life ; and where the instruction 'is 
imperfect, it is astonishing how soon and how much their 
evidence fails us. Yet, in the latter years of life, we do not 
consider this matter, but, having obtained the ordinary teaching 
sufficient for ordinary purposes, we venture to judge of things 
which are extraordinary for the time, and almost always with 
the more assurance as our powers of observation are less 
educated. Consider the following case of a physical impression, 
derived from the sense of touch, which can be examined and 
verified at pleasure : If the hands be brought towards each 
other so that the tips of the corresponding fingers touch, the 
end of any finger may be considered as an object to be felt 
by the opposed finger, thus the two middle fingers may for the 
present be so viewed. If the attention be directed to them, 



42 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

no difficulty will be experienced in moving each lightly in a 
circle round the tip of the other, so that they shall each feel 
the opposite, and the motion may be either in one direction or 
the other — looking at the fingers, or with eyes employed else- 
where — or with the remaining fingers touching quiescently, or 
moving in a like direction ; all is easy, because each finger is 
employed in the ordinary or educated manner whilst obeying 
the will, and whilst communicating through the sentient organ 
with the brain. But turn the hands half way round, so that 
their backs shall be towards each other, and then, crossing 
them at the wrists, again bring the like fingers into contact at 
the tips. If it be now desired to move the extremities of the 
middle fingers round each other, or to follow the contour of 
one finger by the tip of the opposed one, all sorts of confusion 
in the motion will ensue ; and as the finger of one hand tries, 
under the instruction of the will, to move in one course, the 
touched finger will convey an intimation that it is moving in 
another. If all the fingers move at once, all will be in confusion, 
the ease and simplicity of the first case having entirely dis- 
appeared. If, after some considerable trial, familiarity with 
the new circumstances have removed part of the uncertainty, 
then, crossing the hands at the opposite sides of the wrists will 
renew it. These contrary results are dependent, not on any 
change in the nature of the sentient indication, or of the 
surfaces or substances which the sense has to deal with, but 
upon the trifling circumstance of a little variation from the 
direction in which the sentient organs of these parts are usually 
exerted, and they show to what an extraordinary extent our 
interpretations of the sense impressions depend upon the 
experience, i.e. the education which they have previously 
received, and their great inability to aid us at once in circum- 
stances which are entirely new. 

At other times they fail us because we cannot keep a true 
remembrance of former impressions. Thus, on the evening of 
the eleventh of March last, I and many others were persuaded 
that at One period the moon had a real green colour, and 
though I knew that the prevailing red tints of the general sky 
were competent to produce an effect of such a kind, yet there 
was so little of that in the neighbourhood of the planet, that 
I was doubtful whether the green tint was not produced on 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 43 

the moon by some aerial medium spread before it, until, by 
holding up white cards in a proper position, and comparing 
them with our satellite, I had determined experimentally that 
the effect was only one of contrast. In the midst of the 
surrounding tints, my memory could not recall the true sentient 
impression which the white of the moon most surely had 
before made upon the eye. , 

At other times the failure is because one impression is over- 
powered by another ; for as the morning star disappears when the 
sun is risen, though still above the horizon and shining brightly 
as ever, so do stronger phenomena obscure weaker, even when 
both are of the same kind ; till an uninstructed person is apt to 
pass the weaker unobserved, and even deny their existence. 

So, error results occasionally from believing our senses : it 
ought to be considered, rather, as an error of the judgment than 
of the sense, for the latter has performed its duty ; the indica- 
tion is always correct, and in harmony with the great truth of 
nature. Where, then, is the mistake ? — almost entirely with 
our judgment. We have not had that sufficient instruction 
by the senses which would justify our making a conclusion ; 
we have to contrive extra and special means, by which their 
first impressions shall be corrected, or rather enlarged ; and it 
is because our procedure was hasty, our data too few, and our 
judgment untaught, that we fell into mistake ; not because the 
data were wrong. How frequently may each one of us perceive, 
in our neighbours, at least, that a result like this derived from 
the observation of physical things, happens in the ordinary 
affairs of common life. 

When I become convicted of such haste, which is not infre- 
quently the case, I look back upon the error as one of " pre- 
sumptuous judgment." Under that form it is easily presentable 
to the mind, and has a useful corrective action. I do not think 
the expression too strong ; for if we are led, either by simplicity 
or vanity, to give an opinion upon matters respecting which 
we are not instructed, either by the knowledge of others, or 
our own intimate observation ; if we are induced to ascribe 
an effect to one force, or deny its relation to another, knowing 
little or nothing of the laws of the forces, or the necessary 
conditions of the effect to be considered ; surely our judgment 
must be qualified as " presumptuous." 



44 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

There are multitudes who think themselves competent to 
decide, after the most cursory observation, upon the cause of 
this or that event (and they may be really very acute and 
correct in things familiar to them) : — a not unusual phrase with 
them is, that " it stands to reason," that the effect they expect 
should result from the cause they assign to it, and yet it is 
very difficult, in numerous cases that appear plain, to show this 
reason, or to deduce the true and only rational relation of cause 
and effect. In matters connected with natural philosophy, we 
have wonderful aid in the progress and assurance in the 
character, of our final judgment, afforded us by the facts which 
supply our data, and the experience which multiplies their 
number and varies their testimony. A fundamental fact, like 
an elementary principle, never fails us, its evidence is always 
true ; but, on the other hand, we frequently have to ask what 
is the fact ?■ — often fail in distinguishing it, — often fail in the 
very statement of it, — and mostly overpass or come short of its 
true recognition. 

If we are subject to mistake in the interpretation of our mere 
sense impressions, we are much more liable to error when we 
proceed to deduce from these impressions (as supplied to us by 
our ordinary experience), the relation of cause and effect ; and 
the accuracy of our judgment, consequently, is more endangered. 
Then our dependence should be upon carefully observed facts, 
and the laws of nature ; and I shall proceed to a further 
illustration of the mental deficiency I speak of, by a brief 
reference to one of these. 

The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the founda- 
tion of our knowledge in natural things. So much as we know 
of them has been developed by the successive energies of -the 
highest intellects, exerted through many ages. After a most 
rigid and scrutinizing examination upon principle and trial, a 
definite expression has been given to them ; they have become, 
as it were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still examine 
and test our expressions of them. We have no interest in their 
retention if erroneous ; on the contrary, the greatest discovery 
a man could make would be to prove that one of these accepted 
laws was erroneous, and his greatest honour would be the 
discovery. Neither would there be any desire to retain the 
former expression : — for we know that the new or the amended 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 45 

law would be far more productive in results, would greatly 
increase our intellectual acquisitions, and would prove an 
abundant source of fresh delight to the mind. 

These laws are numerous, and are more or less comprehensive. 
They are also precise ; for a law may present an apparent 
exception, and yet not be less a law to us, when the exception 
is included in the expression. Thus, that elevation of tempera- 
ture expands all bodies is a well-defined law, though there be 
an exception in water for a limited temperature ; because we 
are careful, whilst stating the law, to state the exception and 
its limits. Pre-eminent among these laws, because of its 
simplicity, its universality, and its undeviating truth, stands 
that enunciated by Newton (commonly called the law of 
gravitation), that matter attracts matter with a force inversely 
as the square of the distance. Newton showed that, by this 
law, the general condition of things on the surface of the earth 
is governed ; and the globe itself, with all upon it, kept together 
as a whole. He demonstrated that the motions of the planets 
round the sun, and of the satellites about the planets, were 
subject to it. During and since his time, certain variations in 
the movements of the planets, which were called irregularities, 
and might, for aught that was then known, be due to some 
cause other than the attraction of gravitation, were found to 
be its necessary consequences (see Note A). By the close and 
scrutinizing attention of minds the most persevering and careful, 
it was ascertained that even the distant stars were subject to this 
law ; and, at last, to place as it were the seal of assurance to 
its never-failing truth, it became, in the minds of Leverrier and 
Adams (1845), the foreteller and the discoverer of an orb 
rolling in the depths of space, so large as to equal nearly sixty 
earths, yet so far away as to be invisible to the unassisted eye. 
What truth, beneath that of revelation, can have an assurance 
stronger than this ! 

Yet this law is often cast aside as of no value or authority, 
because of the unconscious ignorance amidst which we dwell. 
You hear at the present day, that some persons can place their 
fingers on a table, arid then elevating their hands, the table 
will rise up and follow them ; that the piece of furniture, though 
heavy, will ascend, and that their hands bear no weight, or are 
not drawn down to the wood ; you do not hear of this as a 



46 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

conjuring manoeuvre, to be shown for your amusement, but are 
expected seriously to believe it ; and are told that it is an 
important fact, a great discovery amongst the truths of nature. 
Your neighbour, a well-meaning, conscientious person, believes 
it ; and the assertion finds acceptance in every rank of society, 
and amongst classes which are esteemed to be educated. Now 
what can this imply but that society, speaking generally, is 
not only ignorant as respects education of the judgment, but is 
also ignorant of its ignorance. The parties who are thus 
persuaded, and those who are inclined to think and to hope 
that they are right, throw up Newton's law at once, and that 
in a case which of all others is fitted to be tested by it ; or if 
the law be erroneous, to test the law. I will not say they 
oppose the law, though I have heard the supj^osed fact quoted 
triumphantly against it ; but as far as my observation has 
gone, they will not apply it. The law affords the simplest 
means of testing the fact, and if there be, indeed, anything in 
the latter new to our knowledge (and who shall say that new 
matter is not presented to us daily, passing away unrecognized), 
it also affords the means of placing that before us separately in 
its simplicity and truth. Then why not consent to apply the 
knowledge we have to that which is under development ? 
Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then casting 
away all we have acquired, turn to our ignorance for aid to 
guide us among the unknown ? If so, instruct a man to write, 
but employ one who is unacquainted with letters to read that 
which is written ; the end will be just as unsatisfactory, though 
not so injurious, for the book of nature, which we have to read, 
is written by the finger of God. Why should not one who can 
thus lift a table proceed to verify and simplify his fact, and 
bring it into relation with the law of Newton ? Why should 
he not take the top of his table (it may be a small one), and 
placing it in a balance, or on a lever, proceed to ascertain how 
much weight he can raise by the draught of his fingers upwards ; 
and of this weight, so ascertained, how much is unrepresented 
by any pull upon the fingers downward ? He will then be able 
to investigate the further question, whether electricity, or any 
new force of matter, is made manifest in his operations ; or 
whether action and reaction being unequal, he has at his com- 
mand the source of a perpetual motion. Such a man, furnished 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 47 

with a nicely constructed carriage on a railway', ought to travel 
by the mere draught of his own fingers. A far less prize than 
this would gain him the attention of the whole scientific and 
commercial world ; and he may rest assured, that if he can 
make the most delicate balance incline or decline by attraction, 
though it be only with the force of an ounce, or even a grain, he 
Avill not fail to gain universal respect and most honourable 
reward. 

When we think of the laws of nature (which by continued 
observation have become known to us) as the proper tests to 
which any new fact or our theoretical representation of it 
should, in the first place, be subjected, let us contemplate their 
assured and large character. Let us go out into the field and 
look at the heavens with their solar, starry, and planetary 
glories ; the sky with its clouds ; the waters descending from 
above or wandering at our feet ; the animals, the trees, the 
plants ; and consider the permanency of their actions and con- 
ditions under the government of these laws. The most delicate 
flower, the tenderest insect, continues in its species through count- 
less years ; always varying, yet ever the same (see Note B). 
When we think we have discovered a departure, as in the 
Aphides, Medusae, Distomce, &c.,* the law concerned is itself the 
best means of instituting an investigation, and hitherto we have 
always found the witness to return to its original testimony. 
These frail things are never-ceasing, never-changing evidence 
of the law's immutability (see Note C). It would be well for 
a man who has an anomalous case before him, to contemplate 
a blade of grass, and when he has considered the numerous 
ceaseless, yet certain, actions there located, and his inability 
to change the character of the least among them (see also 
Note C), to recur to his new subject; and, in place of accepting 
unwatched and unchecked results, to search for a like certainty 
and recurrence in the appearances and actions which belong 
to it. 

Perhaps it may be said, the delusion of table-moving is past, 
and need not be recalled before an audience like the present ; *}" 
— even granting this, let us endeavour to make the subject 

* See Claparede's Account of Alternating Generation and the Metamorphoses 
of Inferior Animals. — Bib. Univ., March 1854, p. 229. 
t See Note, p. 67. 



48 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

leave one useful result ; let it serve for an example, not to pass 
into forgetf ulness. It is so recent, and was received by the 
public in a manner so strange, as to justify a reference to it, in 
proof of the uneducated condition of the general mind. I do 
not object to table-moving for itself ; for being once stated it 
becomes a fit though a very unpromising subject for experi- 
ment ; but I am opposed to the unwillingness of its advocates 
to investigate ; their boldness to assert ; the credulity of the 
lookers-on ; their desire that the reserved and cautious objector 
should be in error ; and I wish, by calling attention to these 
things, to make the general want of mental discipline and 
education manifest. 



Having endeavoured to point out this great deficiency in the 
exercise of the intellect, I will offer a few remarks upon the 
means of subjecting it to the improving processes of instruction. 
Perhaps many who watch over the interests of the community, 
and are anxious for its welfare, will conclude, that the develop- 
ment of the judgment cannot properly be included in the 
general idea of education ; that as the education proposed must, 
to a very large degree, be of self, it is so far incommunicable ; 
that the master and the scholar merge into one, and both 
disappear ; that the instructor is no wiser than the one to be 
instructed, and thus the usual relations of the two lose their 
power. Still, I believe that the judgment may be educated to 
a very large extent, and might refer to the fine arts as giving 
proof in the affirmative ; and though, as respects the com- 
munity and its improvement in relation to common things, any 
useful education must be of self, I think that society, as a body, 
may act powerfully in the cause. Or it may still be objected 
that my experience is imperfect, is chiefly derived from exercise 
of the mind within the precincts of natural philosophy, and has 
not that generality of application which can make it of any 
value to society at large. I can only repeat my conviction, 
that society occupies itself nowadays about physical matters, 
and judges them as common things. Failing in relation to 
them, it is equally liable to carry such failures into other matters 
of life. The proof of deficient judgment in one department 
shows the habit of mind, and the general want, in relation to 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 49 

others. I am persuaded that all persons may find in natural 
things an admirable school for self-instruction, and a field for 
the necessary mental exercise ; that they may easily apply 
their habits of thought, thus formed, to a social use ; and that 
they ought to do this, as a duty to themselves and their 
generation. 

Let me first try to illustrate the former part of the case, and 
at the same time state what I think a man may and ought to 
do for himself. 

The self-education to which he should be stimulated by the 
desire to improve his judgment, requires no blind dependence 
upon the dogmas of others, but is commended to him by the 
suggestions and dictates of his own common sense. The first 
part of it is founded in mental discipline : happily it requires 
no unpleasant avowals ; appearances are preserved, and vanity 
remains unhurt ; but it is necessary that a man examine himself, 
and that not carelessly. On the contrary, as he advances, he 
should become more and more strict, till he ultimately prove 
a sharper critic to himself than any one else can be ; and he 
ought to intend this, for, so far as he consciously falls short of 
it, he acknowledges that others may have reason on their side 
when they criticize him. A first result of this habit of mind 
will be an internal conviction of ignorance in many things 
respecting which his neighbours are taught, and, that his opinions 
and conclusions on such matters ought to be advanced with 
reservation. A mind so disciplined will be open to correction 
upon good grounds in all things, even in those it is best acquainted 
with ; and should familiarize itself with the idea of such being 
the case : for though it sees no reason to suppose itself in error, 
yet the possibility exists. The mind is not enfeebled by this 
internal admission, but strengthened ; for, if it cannot distin- 
guish proportionately between the probable right and wrong 
of things known imperfectly, it will tend either to be rash or to 
hesitate ; whilst that which admits the due amount of proba- 
bility is likely to be justified in the end. It is right that we 
should stand by and act on our principles ; but not right to 
hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved 
to be erroneous. I remember the time when I believed a spark 
was produced between voltaic metals as they approached to 
contact (and the reasons why it might be possible yet remain) ; 



50 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

but others doubted the fact and denied the proofs, and on re-ex- 
amination I found reason to admit their corrections were well 
founded (see Note D). Years ago I believed that electrolytes could 
conduct electricity by a conduction proper ; that has also been 
denied by many through long time : though I believed myself 
right, yet circumstances have induced me to pay that respect to 
criticism as to reinvestigate the subject, and I have the pleasure 
of thinking that nature confirms my original conclusions (see 
Note E). So though evidence may appear to preponderate 
extremely in favour of a certain decision, it is wise and proper 
to hear a counter-statement. You can have no idea how often 
and how much, under such an impression, I have desired that 
the marvellous descriptions which have reached me might 
prove, in some points, correct ; and how frequently I have 
submitted myself to hot fires, to friction with magnets, to the 
passes of hands, etc., lest I should be shutting out discovery ; — 
encouraging the strong desire that something might be true, 
and that I might aid in the development of a new force of 
nature. 

Among those points of self-education which take up the form 
of mental discipline, there is one of great importance, and, more- 
over, difficult to deal with, because it involves an internal 
conflict, and equally touches our vanity and our ease. It 
consists in the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish 
for, and the necessity of resistance to these desires. It is impos- 
sible for any one who has not been constrained, by the course of 
his occupation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self- 
correction, to be aware of the amount of error in relation to 
judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the tempta- 
tion which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances 
as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which 
oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, 
more or less, active promoters of error. In place of practising 
wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father 
to the thought : we receive as friendly that which agrees with, 
we resist with dislike that which opposes us ; whereas the very 
reverse is required by every dictate of common sense. Let me 
illustrate my meaning by a case where the proof being easy, the 
rejection of it under the temptation is the more striking. In 
old times, a ring or a button would be tied by a boy to one end 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 51 

of a long piece of thread, which he would then hold at the other 
end, letting the button hang within a glass, or over a piece of 
slate-pencil, or sealing-wax, or a nail ; he would wait and 
observe whether the button swung, and whether in swinging it 
tapped the glass as many times as the clock struck last, or 
moved along or across the slate-pencil, or in a circle or oval. 
In late times, parties in all ranks of life have renewed and 
repeated the boy's experiment. They have sought to ascertain 
a very simple fact — namely, whether the effect was as reported ; 
but how many were unable to do this ? They were sure they 
could keep their hands immovable, — were sure they could do 
so whilst watching the result, — were sure that accordance of 
swing with an expected direction was not the result of their 
desires or involuntary motions. How easily all these points 
could be put to the proof by not looking at the objects, yet how 
difficult for the experimenter to deny himself that privilege. I 
have rarely found one who would freely permit the substance 
experimented with to be screened from his sight, and then its 
position changed. 

When engaged in the investigation of table-turning, I con- 
structed a very simple apparatus,* serving as an index, to show 
the unconscious motions of the hands upon the table. The 
results were either that the index moved before the table, or 
that neither index nor table moved ; and in numerous cases 
all moving power was annihilated. A universal objection was 
made to it by the table- turners. It was said to paralyse the 
powers of the mind ; — but the experimenters need not see the 
index ; they may leave their friends to watch that, and their 
minds may revel in any power that their expectation or their 
imagination can confer. So restrained, a dislike to the trial 
arises ; but what is that except a proof that whilst they trust 
themselves they doubt themselves, and are not willing to proceed 
to the decision, lest the trust which they like should fail them, 
and the doubt which they dislike rise to the authority of truth. 

Again, in respect of the action of magnets on the body, it is 
almost impossible for an uninstructed person to enter profitably 
upon such an inquiry. He may observe any symptom which 
his expectation has been accidentally directed to : yet be 

* Athenceum, July 2, 1853. — Newman, Philosophical Instrument Maker, 
122 Regent Street (see Note F). 



52 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

unconscious of any, if unaware of his subjection to the magnetic 
force, or of the conditions and manner of its application (see 
Note G). 

As a proof of the extent of this influence, even on the minds 
of those well aware of its force, and desirous under every 
circumstance to escape from it, I will mention the practice of 
the chemist, who, dealing with the balance, that impartial 
decider which never fails in its indication, but offers its evidence 
with all simplicity, durability, and truth, still remembers he 
should doubt himself ; and, with the desire of rendering himself 
inaccessible to temptation, takes a counterpoised but unknown 
quantity of the substance for analysis, that he may remain 
ignorant of the proportions which he ought to obtain, and only 
at last compares the sum of his products with his counterpoise. 

The inclination we exhibit in respect of any report or opinion 
that harmonizes with our preconceived notions, can only be 
compared in degree with the incredulity we entertain towards 
everything that opposes them ; and these opposite and 
apparently incompatible, or at least inconsistent, conditions are 
accepted simultaneously in the most extraordinary manner. 
At one moment a departure from the laws of nature is admitted 
without the pretence of a careful examination of the proof ; and 
at the next, the whole force of these laws, acting undeviatingly 
through all time, is denied, because the testimony they give is 
disliked. 

It is my firm persuasion, that no man can examine himself in 
the most common things, having any reference to him personally, 
or to any person, thought, or matter related to him, without 
being soon made aware of the temptation and the difficulty of 
opposing it. I could give you many illustrations personal to 
myself, about atmospheric magnetism, lines of force, attraction, 
repulsion, unity of power, nature of matter, etc. ; or in things 
more general to our common nature, about likes and dislikes, 
wishes, hopes, and fears ; but it would be unsuitable and also 
unnecessary, for each must be conscious of a large field sadly 
uncultivated in this respect. I will simply express my strong 
belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching 
the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved 
to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of 
natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 53 

There are numerous precepts resulting more or less from the 
principles of mental discipline already insisted on as essential, 
which are very useful in forming a judgment about matters of 
fact, whether among natural things or between man and man. 
Such a precept, and one that should recur to the mind early in 
every new case is, to know the conditions of the matter, respecting 
which we are called upon to make a judgment. To suppose 
that any would judge before they professed to know the condi- 
tions would seem to be absurd ; on the other hand, to assume 
that the community does wait to know the conditions before it 
judges, is an assumption so large that I cannot accept it. Very 
few search out the conditions ; most are anxious to sink those 
which oppose their preconceptions ; yet none can be left out if 
a right judgment is to be formed. It is true that many condi- 
tions must ever remain unknown to us, even in regard to the 
simplest things in nature : thus as to the wonderful action of 
gravity, whose law never fails us, we cannot say whether the 
bodies are acting truly at a distance, or by a physical line of 
force as a connecting-link between them. The great majority 
think the former is the case ; Newton's judgment is for the 
latter.* But of the conditions which are within our reach we 
should search out all ; for in relation to those which remain 
unknown or unsuspected, we are in that very ignorance 
(regarding judgment) which it is our present object, first to 
make manifest, and then to remove. 

One exercise of the mind, which largely influences the power 
and character of the judgment, is the habit of forming clear and 
iprecise ideas. If, after considering . a subject in our ordinary 
manner, we return upon it with the special purpose of noticing 
the condition of our thoughts, we shall be astonished to find 
how little precise they remain. On recalling the phenomena 
relating to a matter of fact, the circumstances modifying them, 
the kind and amount of action presented, the real or probable 
result, we shall find that the first impressions are scarcely fit 
for the foundation of a judgment, and that the second thoughts 
will be best. For the acquirement of a good condition of mind 
in this respect, the thoughts should be trained to a habit of 
clear and precise formation, so that vivid and distinct impres- 

* Newton' 8 Works, Horsley's Edition, 1783, iv, p. 438 — or the Third Letter 
to Bentley. 

D 



54 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

sions of the matter in hand, its circumstances and consequences, 
may remain. 

Before we proceed to consider any question involving physical 
principles, we should set out with clear ideas of the naturally 
possible and impossible. There are many subjects uniting 
more or less of the most sure and valuable investigations of 
science with the most imaginary and unprofitable speculation, 
that are continually passing through their various phases of 
intellectual, experimental, or commercial development : some 
to be established, some to disappear, and some to recur again 
and again, like ill weeds that cannot be extirpated, yet can be 
cultivated to no result as wholesome food for the mind. Such, 
for instance, in different degrees, are the caloric engine, the 
electric light, the Pasilalinic sympathetic compass,* mesmerism, 
homoeopathy, odylism, the magneto-electric engine, the per- 
petual motion, etc. : all hear and talk of these things ; all use 
their judgment more or less upon them, and all might do that 
effectively, if they were to instruct themselves to the extent 
which is within their reach. I am persuaded that natural 
things offer an admirable school for self-instruction, a most 
varied field for the necessary mental practice, and that those 
who exercise themselves therein may easily apply the habits 
of thought thus formed to a social use. As a first step in such 
practice, clear ideas should be obtained of what is possible and 
what is impossible (see Note I). Thus, it is impossible to create 
force. We may employ it ; we may evoke it in one form by its 
consumption in another ; we may hide it for a period ; but we can 
neither create nor destroy it. We may cast it away ; but where 
we dismiss it, there it will do its work. If, therefore, we desire 
to consider a proposition respecting the employment or evolu- 
tion of power, let us carry our judgment, educated on this 
point, with us. If the proposal include the double use of a 
force with only one excitement, it implies a creation of power, 
and that cannot be. If we could by the fingers draw a heavy 
piece of wood or stone upward without effort, and then, letting 
it sink, could produce by its gravity an effort equal to its 
weight, that would be a creation of power, and cannot be. 

So again we cannot annihilate matter, nor can we create it. 
But if we are satisfied to rest upon that dogma, what are we to 
* See Chambers's Journal, 1851, Feb. 15th, p. 105 (see Note H). 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 55 

think of table-lifting ? If we could make the table to cease 
from acting by gravity upon the earth beneath it, or by reaction 
upon the hand supposed to draw it upwards, we should annihi- 
late it, in respect of that very property which characterizes it 
as matter. 

Considerations of this nature are very important aids to the 
judgment ; and when a statement is made claiming our assent, 
we should endeavour to reduce it to some consequence which 
can be immediately compared with, and tried by, these or like 
compact and never-failing truths. If incompatibility appears, 
then we have reason to suspend our conclusion, however 
attractive to the imagination the proposition may be, and 
pursue the inquiry further, until accordance is obtained ; it 
must be a most uneducated and presumptuous mind that can 
at once consent to cast off the tried truth and accept in its 
place the mere loud assertion. We should endeavour to 
separate the points before us, and concentrate each, so as to 
evolve a clear type idea of the ruling fact and its consequences ; 
looking at the matter on every side, with the great purpose of 
distinguishing the constituent reality, and recognizing it under 
every variety of aspect. 

In like manner we should accustom ourselves to clear and 
definite language, especially in physical matters, giving to a 
word its true and full, but measured meaning, that we may be 
able to convey our ideas clearly to the minds of others. Two 
persons cannot mutually impart their knowledge, or compare 
and rectify their conclusions, unless both attend to the true 
intent and force of language. If by such words as attraction, 
electricity, polarity, or atom, they imply different things, they 
may discuss facts, deny results, and doubt consequences for an 
indefinite time without any advantageous progress. I hold it 
as a great point in self-education that the student should be 
continually engaged in forming exact ideas, and in expressing 
them clearly by language. Such practice insensibly opposes 
any tendency to exaggeration or mistake, and increases the 
sense and love of truth in every part of life. 

I should be sorry, however, if what I have said were under- 
stood as meaning that education for the improvement and 
strengthening of the judgment is to be altogether repressive of 
the imagination, or confine the exercise of the mind to processes 



56 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

of a mathematical or mechanical character. I believe that, in 
the pursuit of physical science, the imagination should be 
taught to present the subject investigated in all possible, and 
even in impossible views ; to search for analogies of likeness 
and (if I may say so) of opposition — inverse or contrasted 
analogies ; to present the fundamental idea in every form, 
proportion, and condition ; to clothe it with suppositions and 
probabilities, that all cases may pass in review, and be touched, 
if needful, by the Ithuriel spear of experiment. But all this 
must be under government, and the result must not be given to 
society until the judgment, educated by the process itself, has 
been exercised upon it. Let us construct our hypotheses for 
an hour, or a day, or for years ; they are of the utmost value in 
the elimination of truth, " which is evolved more freely from 
error than from confusion " ; but, above all things, let us not 
cease to be aware of the temptation they offer, or, because they 
gradually become familiar to us, accept them as established. 
We could not reason about electricity without thinking of it as 
a fluid, or a vibration, or some other existent state or form. 
We should give up half our advantage in the consideration of 
heat if we rdfused to consider it as a principle, or a state of 
motion. We could scarcely touch such subjects by experiment, 
and we should make no progress in their practical application, 
without hypothesis ; still it is absolutely necessary that we 
should learn to doubt the conditions we assume, and acknow- 
ledge we are uncertain, whether heat and electricity are 
vibrations or substances, or either. 

When the different data required are in our possession, and 
we have succeeded in forming a clear idea of each, the mind 
should be instructed to balance them one against another, and 
not suffered carelessly to hasten to a conclusion. This reserve 
is most essential ; and it is especially needful that the reasons 
which are adverse to our expectations or our desires should be 
carefully attended to. We often receive truth from unpleasant 
sources ; we often have reason to accept unpalatable truths. 
We are never freely willing to admit information having this 
unpleasant character, and it requires much self-control in this 
respect, to preserve us even in a moderate degree from errors. 
I suppose there is scarcely one investigator in original research 
who has not felt the temptation to disregard the reasons and 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 57 

results which are against his views. I acknowledge that I 
have experienced it very often, and will not pretend to say that 
I have yet learned on all occasions to avoid the error. When a 
bar of bismuth or phosphorus is placed between the poles of a 
powerful magnet, it is drawn into a position across the line 
joining the poles ; when only one pole is near the bar, the latter 
recedes ; this and the former effect is due to repulsion, and is 
strikingly in contrast with the attraction shown by iron. To 
account for it, I at one time suggested the idea that a polarity 
was induced in the phosphorus or bismuth the reverse of the 
polarhy induced in iron, and that opinion is still sustained by 
eminent philosophers. But observe a necessary result of such 
a supposition, which appears to follow when the phenomena 
are referred to elementary principles. Time is shown, by every 
result bearing on the subject, to be concerned in the coming on 
and passing away of the inductive condition produced by 
magnetic force, and the consequence, as Thomson pointed out, 
is, that if a ball of bismuth could be suspended between the 
poles of a magnet, so as to encounter no resistance from the 
surrounding medium, or from friction or torsion, and were once 
put in motion round a vertical axis, it would, because of the 
assumed polar state, go on for ever revolving, the parts which 
at any moment are axial moving like the bar; so as to become 
the next moment equatorial. Now, as we believe the mecha- 
nical forces of nature tend to bring things into a stable, and not 
into an unstable condition ; as we believe that a perpetual 
motion is impossible ; so because both these points are involved 
in the notion of the reverse polarity, which itself is not supposed 
to be dependent on any consumption of power, I feel bound to 
hold the judgment balanced, and therefore hesitate to accept a 
conclusion founded on such a notion of the physical action ; the 
more especially as the peculiar test facts * which prove the 
polarity of iron are not reproduced in the case of diamagnetic 
bodies (see Note K). 

As a result of this wholesome mental condition, we should be 
able to form a proportionate judgment. The mind naturally 
desires to settle upon one thing or another ; to rest upon an 
affirmative or a negative ; and that with a degree of absolutism 
which is irrational and improper. In drawing a conclusion it 
* Experimental Researches in Electricity, paragraphs 2657-268 1- 



58 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

is very difficult, but not the less necessary, to make it propor- 
tionate to the evidence : except where certainty exists (a case 
of rare occurrence), we should consider our decisions as probable 
only. The probability may appear very great, so that in 
affairs of the world we often accept such as certainty, and 
trust our welfare or our lives upon it. Still, only an uneducated 
mind will confound probability with certainty, especially when 
it encounters a contrary conclusion drawn by another from like 
data. This suspension in degree of judgment will not make a 
man less active in life, or his conclusions less certain as truths ; 
on the contrary, I believe him to be the more ready for the 
right amount and direction of action on any emergency ; and 
am sure his conclusions and statements will carry more weight 
in the world than those of the incautious man. 

When I was young, I received from one well able to aid a 
learner in his endeavours toward self-improvement, a curious 
lesson in the mode of estimating the amount of belief one might 
be induced to attach to our conclusions. The person was 
Dr. Wollaston, who, upon a given point, was induced to offer 
me a wager of two to one on the affirmative. I rather imperti- 
nently quoted Butler's well-known lines * about the kind of 
persons who use wagers for argument, and he gently explained 
to me, that he considered such a wager not as a thoughtless 
thing, but as an expression of the amount of belief in the mind 
of the person offering it ; combining this curious application of 
the wager, as a meter, with the necessity that ever existed of 
drawing conclusions, not absolute but proportionate to the 
evidence (see Note L). 

Occasionally and frequently the exercise of the judgment 
ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful, 
and great fatigue, to suspend a conclusion, but as we are not 
infallible, so we ought to be cautious ; we shall eventually find 
our advantage, for the man who rests in his position is not so 
far from right as he who, proceeding in a wrong direction, is 
ever increasing his distance. In the year 1824, Arago dis- 
covered f that copper and other bodies placed in the vicinity 
of a magnet, and having no direct action of attraction or 

* " Quoth she, ' I've heard old cunning stagers, 

Say fools for arguments use wagers.' " 
t Annales de Chimie, xxviii, p. 325. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 59 

repulsion upon it, did affect it when moved, and was affected 
by it. A copper plate revolving near a magnet carried the 
magnet with it ; or if the magnet revolved, and not the copper, 
it carried the copper with it. A magnetic needle vibrating 
freely over a disc of glass or wood, was exceedingly retarded in 
its motion when these were replaced by a disc of copper. Arago 
stated most clearly all the conditions, and resolved the forces 
into three directions, but not perceiving the physical cause of 
the action, exercised a most wise and instructive reservation as 
to his conclusion. Others, as Haldat,- considered it as the proof 
of the universality of a magnetism of the ordinary kind, and 
held to that notion though it was contradicted by the further 
facts ; and it was only at a future period that the true physical 
cause, namely, magneto-electric currents induced in the copper, 
became known to us.* What an education Arago's mind must 
have received in relation to philosophical reservation ; what an 
antithesis he forms with the mass of table-turners ; and what 
a fine example he has left us of that condition of judgment to 
which we should strive to attain ! 

If I may give another illustration of the needful reservation 
of judgment, I will quote the case of oxygen and hydrogen 
gases, which, being mixed, will remain together uncombined for 
years in contact with glass, but in contact with spongy platinum 
combine at once (see Note M). We have the same fact in many 
forms, and many suggestions have been made as to the mode 
of action, but as yet we do not know clearly how the result 
comes to pass. We cannot tell whether electricity acts or not. 
Then we should suspend our conclusions. Our knowledge of 
the fact itself, and the many varieties of it, is not the less 
abundant or sure ; and when the truth shall hereafter emerge 
from the mist, we ought to have no opposing prejudice, but be 
prepared to receive it. 

The education which I advocate will require patience and 
labour of thought in every exercise tending to improve the 
judgment. It matters not on what subject a person's mind is 
occupied, he should engage in it with the conviction that it will 
require mental labour. A powerful mind will be able to draw 
a conclusion more readily and more correctly than one of 
moderate^character, but both will surpass themselves if they 
* Philosophical Transactions, 1832, p. 146. 



60 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

make an earnest, careful investigation, instead of a careless or 
prejudiced one ; and education for this purpose is the more 
necessary for the latter, because the man of less ability may, 
through it, raise his rank and amend his position. I earnestly 
urge this point of self-education, for I believe it to be more or 
less in the power of every man greatly to improve his judgment. 
I do not think that one has the complete capacity for judgment 
which another is naturally without. I am of opinion that all 
may judge, and that we only need to declare on every side the 
conviction that mental education is wanting, and lead men to 
see that through it they hold, in a large degree, their welfare 
and their character in their own hands, to cause in future years 
an abundant development of right judgment in every class. 

This education has for its first and its last step humility. It 
can commence only because of a conviction of deficiency ; and 
if we are not disheartened under the growing revelations which 
it will make, that conviction will become stronger unto the end. 
But the humility will be founded, not on comparison of our- 
selves with the imperfect standards around us, but on the 
increase of that internal knowledge which alone can make us 
aware of our internal wants. The first step in correction is to 
learn our deficiencies, and having learned them, the next step 
is almost complete : for no man who has discovered that his 
judgment is hasty, or illogical, or imperfect, would go on with 
the same degree of haste, or irrationality, or presumption as 
before. I do not mean that all would at once be cured of bad 
mental habits, but I think better of human nature than to 
believe that a man in any rank of life, who has arrived at the 
consciousness of such a condition, would deny his common 
sense, and still judge and act as before. And though such self- 
schooling must continue to the end of life to supply an experience 
of deficiency rather than of attainment, still there is abundant 
stimulus to excite any man to perseverance. What he has lost are 
things imaginary, not real; what he gains are riches before unknown 
to him, yet invaluable ; and though he may think more humbly of 
his own character, he will find himself at every step of his progress 
more sought for than before, more trusted with responsibility and 
held in pre-eminence by his equals, and more highly valued by 
those whom he himself will esteem worthy of approbation. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 61 

And now a few words upon the mutual relation of two 
classes, namely, those who decline to educate their judgments 
in regard to the matters on which they decide, and those who, 
by self-education, have endeavoured to improve themselves ; 
and upon the remarkable and somewhat unreasonable manner 
in which the latter are called upon, and occasionally taunted, by 
the former. A man who makes assertions, or draws conclusions, 
regarding any given case, ought to be competent to investigate 
it. He has no right to throw the onus on others, declaring 
it their duty to prove him right or wrong. His duty is to 
demonstrate the truth of that which he asserts, or to cease from 
asserting (see Note N). The men he calls upon to consider and 
judge have enough to do with themselves, in the examination, 
correction, or verification of their own views. The world little 
knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have 
passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been 
crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and 
adverse examination ; that in the most successful instances not 
a tenth of the suggestions, , the hopes, the wishes, the pre- 
liminary conclusions have been realized. And is a man so 
occupied to be taken from his search after truth in the path he 
hopes may lead to its attainment, and occupied in vain upon 
nothing but a broad assertion ? 

Neither has the assertor of any new thing a right to claim an 
answer in the form of Yes or No ; or think, because none is 
forthcoming, that he is to be considered as having established 
his assertion. So much is unknown to the wisest man that he 
may often be without an answer : as frequently he is so, 
because the subject is in the region of hypothesis, and not of 
facts. In either case he has the right to refuse to speak. I 
cannot tell whether there are two fluids of electricity or any 
fluid at all. I am not bound to explain how a table tilts any 
more than to indicate how, under the conjurer's hands, a 
pudding appears in a hat. The means are not known to me. 
I am persuaded that the results, however strange they may 
appear, are in accordance with that which is truly known, and 
if carefully investigated would justify the well-tried laws of 
nature ; but, as life is limited, I am not disposed to occupy 
the time it is made of in the investigation of matters which, in 
what is known to me of them, offer no reasonable prospect of 



62 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

any useful progress, or anything but negative results. We deny 
the right of those who call upon us to answer their speculations 
" if we can," whilst we have so many of our own to develop 
and correct ; and claim the right for ourselves of withholding 
either our conclusions or the reasons for them, without in the 
least degree admitting that their affirmations are unanswerable. 
We are not even called upon to give an answer to the best of 
our belief : nor bound to admit a bold assertion because we do 
not knozv to the contrary. No one is justified in claiming our 
assent to the spontaneous generation of insects, because we 
cannot circumstantially explain how a mite or the egg of a mite 
has entered into a particular bottle. Let those who affirm the 
exception to the general law of nature, or those others who 
upon the affirmation accept the result, work out the experi- 
mental proof. It has been done in this case by Schulze,* and 
is in the negative ; but how few among the many who make, 
or repeat, the assertion, would have the requisite self-abnega- 
tion, the subjected judgment, the perseverance, and the 
precision which has been displayed in that research. 

Wrien men, more or less marked by their advance, are led 
by circumstances to give an opinion adverse to any popular 
notion, or to the assertions of any sanguine inventor, nothing 
is more usual than the attempt to neutralize the force of such 
an opinion by reference to the mistakes which like educated 
men have made ; and their occasional misjudgments and 
erroneous conclusions are quoted, as if they were less competent 
than others to give an opinion, being even disabled from judging 
like matters to those which are included in their pursuits by 
the very exercise of their minds upon them. How frequently 
has the reported judgment of Davy, upon the impossibility of 
gas-lighting on a large scale, been quoted by speculators 
engaged in tempting monied men into companies, or in the 
pages of journals occupied with the popular fancies of the day ; 
as if an argument were derivable from that in favour of some 
special object to be commended. Why should not men taught 
in the matter of judgment far beyond their neighbours, be 
expected to err sometimes, since the very education in which 
they are advanced can only terminate with their lives ? What 
is there about them, derived|from this education, which sets up 
* Muller's Physiology, or Poggendobf's Annalen, 1836, xxxix, p. 487. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 63 

the shadow of a pretence to perfection ? Such men cannot 
learn all things, and may often be ignorant. The very progress 
which science makes amongst them as a body is a continual 
correction of ignorance — i.e. of a state which is ignorance in 
relation to the future, though wisdom and knowledge in relation 
to the past. In 1823, Wollaston discovered that beautiful 
substance which he called Titanium, believing it to be a simple 
metal : and it was so accepted by all philosophers. Yet this 
was a mistake, for Wohler,* in 1850, showed the substance 
was a very compound body. This is no reproach to Wollaston 
or to those who trusted in him ; he made a step in metallurgy 
which advanced knowledge, and perhaps we may hereafter, 
through it, learn to know that metals are compound bodies. 
Who, then, has a right to quote his mistake as a reproach 
against him ? Who could correct him but men intellectually 
educated as he himself was ? Who does not feel that the 
investigation remains a bright gem in the circlet that memory 
offers to his honour ? 

If we are to estimate the utility of an educated judgment, do 
not let us hear merely of the errors of scientific men, which 
have been corrected by others taught in the same careful 
school ; but let us see what, as a body, they have produced, 
compared with that supplied by their reproachers. Where are 
the established truths and triumphs of ring-swingers, table- 
turners, table- speakers ? What one result in the numerous 
divisions of science or its applications can be traced to their 
exertions ? Where is the investigation completed, so that, as 
in gas-lighting, all may admit that the principles are established 
and a good end obtained, without the shadow of a doubt ? 

If we look to electricity, it, in the hands of the careful investi- 
gator, has advanced to the most extraordinary results : it 
approaches at the motion of his hand ; bursts from the metal ; 
descends from the atmosphere ; surrounds the globe : it talks, 
it writes, it records, it appears to him (cautious as he has learned 
to become) as a universal spirit in nature. If we look to 
photography, whose origin is of our own day, and see what it 
has become in the hands of its discoverers and their successors, 
how wonderful are the results ! The light is made to yield 
impressions upon the dead silver or the coarse paper, beautiful 
* Annates de Chimie, xxix, p. 166. 



64 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

as those it produced upon the living and sentient retina : its 
most transient impression is rendered durable for years ; it is 
made to leave a visible or an invisible trace ; to give a result 
to be seen now or a year hence ; made to paint all natural forms 
and even colours (see Note O) ; it serves the offices of war, of 
peace, of art, science, and economy : it replaces even the mind 
of the human being in some of its lower services ; for a little 
camphine lamp is set down and left to itself, to perform the duty 
of watching the changes of magnetism, heat, and other forces 
of nature, and to record the results, in pictorial curves, which 
supply an enduring record of their most transitory actions. 

What has clairvoyance, or mesmerism, or table-rapping done in 
comparison with results like these ? What have the snails at Paris 
told us from the snails at NeAV York (see Note G) ? What have 
any of these intelligences done in aiding such developments ? 
Why did they not inform us of the possibility of photography ? 
or when that became known, why did they not favour us with 
some instructions for its improvement ? They all profess to 
deal with agencies far more exalted in character than an 
electric current or a ray of light : they also deal with mechanical 
forces ; they employ both the bodily organs and the mental ; 
they profess to lift a table, to turn a hat, to see into a box, or 
into the next room, or a town : — why should they not move a 
balance, and so give us the element of a new mechanical power ? 
take cognizance of a bottle and its contents, and tell us how 
they will act upon those of a neighbouring bottle ? either see 
or feel into a crystal, and inform us of what it is composed ? 
Why have they not added one metal to the fifty ( see Note N ) known 
to mankind, or one planet to the number daily increasing under 
the observant eye of the astronomer ? Why have they not 
corrected one of the mistakes of the philosophers ? There are 
no doubt very many that require it. There has been plenty of 
time for the development and maturation of some of the 
numerous public pretences that have risen up in connexion with 
these supposed agencies ; how is it that not one new power 
has been added to the means of investigation employed by the 
philosophers, or one valuable utilitarian application presented 
to society ? 

In conclusion, I will freely acknowledge that all I have said 
regarding the great want of judgment manifested by society 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 65 

as a body, and the high value of any means which would tend 
to supply the deficiency, have been developed and declared on 
numerous occasions, by authority far above any I possess. The 
deficiency is known hypothetically, but I doubt if in reality ; 
the individual acknowledges the state in respect of others, but 
is unconscious of it in regard to himself. As to the world at 
large, the condition is accepted as a necessary fact ; and so it 
is left untouched, almost ignored. I think that education in 
a large sense should be applied to this state of the subject, and 
that society, though it can do little in the way of communicated 
exjDerience, can do much, by a declaration of the evil that exists 
• and of its remediable character ; by keeping alive a sense of 
the deficiency to be supplied ; and by directing the minds of 
men to the practice and enlargement of that self-education 
which every one pursues more or less, but which under con- 
viction and method would produce a tenfold amount of good. 
I know that the multitude will always be behindhand in this 
education, and to a far greater extent than in respect of the 
education which is founded on book learning. Whatever 
advance books make, they retain ; but each new being comes 
on to the stage of life, with the same average amount of conceit, 
desires, and passions, as his predecessors, and in respect of self- 
education has all to learn. Does the circumstance that we can 
do little more than proclaim the necessity of instruction justify 
the ignorance ? or our silence ? or make the plea for this 
education less strong ? Should it not, on the contrary, gain its 
strength from the fact that all are wanting more or less ? I 
desire we should admit that, as a body, we are universally 
deficient in judgment. I do not mean that we are utterly 
ignorant, but that we have advanced only a little way in the 
requisite education, compared with what is within our power. 

If the necessity of the education of the judgment were a 
familiar and habitual idea with the public, it would often 
afford a sufficient answer to the statement of an ill-informed or 
incompetent person ; if quoted to recall to his remembrance 
the necessity of a mind instructed in a matter, and accustomed 
to balance evidence, it might frequently be an answer to the 
individual himself. Adverse influence might, and would, arise 
from the careless, the confident, the presumptuous, the hasty, 
and the dilatory man, perhaps extreme opposition ; but I 



66 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

believe that the mere acknowledgment and proclamation of the 
ignorance, by society at large, would, through its moral influence, 
destroy the opposition, and be a great means to the attainment 
of the good end desired (for if no more be done than to lead 
such to turn their thoughts inwards, a step in education is 
gained) if they are convinced in any degree, an important 
advance is made ; if they learn only to suspend their judgment, 
the improvement will be one above price. 

It is an extraordinary thing that man, with a mind so 
wonderful that there is nothing to compare with it elsewhere 
in the known creation, should leave it to run wild in respect of 
its highest elements and qualities. He has a power of com- 
parison and judgment, by which his final resolves, and all those 
acts of his material system which distinguish him from the 
brutes, are guided : — shall he omit to educate and improve 
them when education can do much ? Is it towards the very 
principles and privileges that distinguish him above other 
creatures, he should feel indifference ? Because the education 
is internal, it is not the less needful ; nor is it more the duty of 
a man that he should cause his child to be taught than that he 
should teach himself. Indolence may tempt him to neglect 
the self-examination and experience which form his school, and 
weariness may induce the evasion of the necessary practices ; 
but surely a thought of the prize should suffice to stimulate 
him to the requisite exertion : and to those who reflect upon 
the many hours and days, devoted by a lover of sweet sounds, 
to gain a moderate facility upon a mere mechanical instrument, 
it ought to bring a correcting blush of shame, if they feel 
convicted of neglecting the beautiful living instrument, wherein 
play all the powers of the mind. 

I will conclude this subject ; — believe me when I say I have 
been speaking from self-conviction. I did not think this an 
occasion on which I ought to seek for flattering words regarding 
our common nature ; if so, I should have felt unfaithful to the 
trust I had taken up ; so I have spoken from experience. In 
thought I hear the voice, which judges me by the precepts I 
have uttered. I know that I fail frequently in that very 
exercise of judgment to which I call others ; and have abundant 
reason to believe that much more frequently I stand manifest 
to those around me, as one who errs, without being corrected 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 67 

by knowing it. I would willingly have evaded appearing 
before you on this subject, for I shall probably do but little 
good, and may well think it was an error of judgment to 
consent : having consented, my thoughts would flow back 
amongst the events and reflections of my past life, until I 
found nothing present itself but an open declaration, almost a 
confession, as the means of performing the duty due to the 
subject and to you. 

NOTE REFERRED TO ON p. 47. 

As an illustration of the present state of the subject, I will quote one letter 
from among many like it which I have received — M. F. 

" , April 5, 1854. 

" Sir,— I am one of the clergymen of this parish,' and have had the subject 
of table-turning brought under my notice by some of my younger parishioners ; . 
I gave your solution of it as a sufficient answer to the mystery. The reply was 
made, that you had since seen reason to alter your opinion. Would you have 
the politeness to inform me if you have done so ? With many apologies for 
troubling you, 

" I am, your obedient servant, 

(See also Note Q.) 

NOTES REFERRED TO BY CAPITAL LETTERS IN PROFESSOR 
FARADAY'S LECTURE— E. R. L. 

Note A. — Since the date at which Faraday wrote, it has been found that 
certain forces may possibly modify, not " the law of gravitation," but the net 
result of its operation in agglomerations of matter. -Thus the pressure exerted 
upon bodies by light from the sun — though its repulsive effect is so small as 
to be negligible in the case of a body of which the illuminated surface is minute 
as compared with its mass (as, for instance, spheres of such size as the planets 
and fixed stars) yet becomes appreciable when the illuminated surface is 
greatly increased in proportion to the mass of the body under observation, as 
in the case of particles of the size of very fine powder. The light pressure 
on the earth's surface amounts to 74,000 tons, literally " negligible " when 
opposed to the earth's weight, which is six thousand million times a billion 
tons ! Professor Poynting has shown that if the earth were subdivided into 
spheres, each of one forty-seven-billionth of its present radius, and were 
spread out in a thin layer so that each should receive on its surface the 
impact of sunshine — then the total light pressure of the sun on the surface 
of the particles so produced would just equal the gravitational pull. The 
particles supposed to be produced would have a diameter of about one- 
millionth of an inch. The material of the earth would then apparently 
fail to obey the law of gravitation. Similarly, each particle of cosmic 
dust (such as actually exists in vast quantity, and is a normal part of the 
Solar System) must be subject to the action of the sun's light rays anta- 
gonizing its gravitational attraction. Thus it might be contended by a rash 
critic that the law of gravitation is not to be applied universally. Clearly, 
however, the interference with gravitational attraction by the pressure of light 



68 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

does not justify any such conclusion. Both light repulsion and gravitational 
attraction are operative, and the result is the difference of their respective 
pull and push. This is merely one of the innumerable and necessary instances 
of the summation and balancing of effects due to interacting causes with which 
the student of nature is familiar. 

Note B. — It must be remembered that at the time when Faraday adduced 
organic form as an illustration of the permanency of natural law, the doctrine 
of organic evolution had not been generally accepted. His statement would 
be modified at the present day by the recognition of the fact that organic 
forms have been slowly altered in the course of ages by very slight changes — 
so slight as to be scarcely perceptible by the human observer of a few succeeding 
generations, yet accumulating in the course of ages so as to lead to the produc- 
tion and establishment of new species, and in longer lapses of time to the 
derivation of the most complex living things from simpler ancestors, and of 
these again from yet simpler forms. 

Note C. — The man who to-day considers the ceaseless yet certain actions 
located in a blade of grass, recognizes, not his inability to change the character 
of the least among them, but his ability by " crossing " and the selection of 
modified offspring for further breeding, to bring about marked changes in 
some, at least, of the minor characters presented by those actions. The 
statement as to the long-enduring persistence of the natural characters of 
organic species is correct, but we no longer accept a general doctrine of the 
absolute permanency of the characters produced by natural forces — though we 
still adhere (with some reservations) to the doctrines of the persistence of 
" force " and the indestructibility of " matter." 

Note T>. — With a sufficiently large voltaic battery there is certainly a spark 
visible when the wires approach. Though air is practically a non-conductor, a 
current may be forced through it with sufficiently high electrical pressure or 
" voltage." The passage of a current through air is accompanied by a spark 
which is due to a sudden disruption of the highly resistent or " non-conducting " 
atmosphere. Faraday explains in his Experimental Researches that inasmuch 
as the voltaic metal couple will send a current through a highly conduct- 
ing circuit, he expected a slight amount to flow through the air if the length 
of the air-path were made sufficiently small : and the surmise is perfectly 
correct. His doubt can only have been due to the low pressure or voltage 
which was at his command and the consequent weakness of the spark. Nowa- 
days, with voltaic batteries of enormous energy, the spark can be easily seen 
(and heard) by a large audience at a distance. 

Note E. — Later investigation has shown that electric conduction is a 
complex process both in solids and liquids, and that the phrase " conduction 
proper " must not be applied equally to solid silver and to a solution of a salt 
or to a " fused " substance. The occurrence of electrolytic decomposition in 
liquids at once suggests that conduction in such liquids differs in kind from 
that in solid metal. It is interesting to note that Faraday was himself the 
first to point this out. If one observes what occurs in a certain few non- 
conducting solids, one finds that they conduct only when melted. Thus, 
relatively, ice insulates and water conducts. One might come to the conclusion 
that the state of " liquidity" governs the phenomenon, and by some it would 
be considered a hair-splitting distinction to say that it is heat and not the 
" liquidity" that governs. If the state which we call " fluid" always accom- 
panies the power to conduct, a certain type of mind is satisfied to look no 
further. But the method of " concomitant variation " requires careful anaylsis 
of the phenomena which show concomitant variation, if the method is to lead 
us to a safe conclusion as to the cause or causes at work. The discovery of 
substances such as cerium oxide and boron (which appreciably "conduct" 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 69 

only when heated, whilst yet remaining solid) exposes the danger of coming to 
a conclusion when the facts have not been fully examined. That discovery 
renders it obvious that the conductivity acquired by certain bodies when 
brought into the liquid condition by the application of heat does not depend 
upon the assumption of the liquid state, but upon other consequences of increased 
temperature of which " liquidity " is only one, and not a necessary antecedent 
in all cases, of the acquirement of electric conductivity. Minds untrained in 
the analysis of phenomena by means of experimental investigation and the 
consequent determination of the relations to one another of a large series of 
facts, are apt to accept as demonstrated conclusions what are merely probable 
or possible hypotheses. The study of philology and of human history fails to 
train the mind in the definite ascertainment of a large number of relations 
among facts. The facts dealt with in those studies are related in apparently 
arbitrary ways which defy the efforts of philologists and historians to trace 
perfectly consequential laws of cause and effect. It is on this account, among 
others, that those studies are of little value as mental training, compared with 
the experimental sciences, the votaries of which have in hypothesis and verifica- 
tion by experiment an almost unlimited power of ascertaining the innumerable 
relations of a whole universe of facts, and find in the consequent joy of the 
creation of new knowledge and understanding, an unceasing stimulation to the 
exercise of that power. 

Note F. — -The original model of " the very simple apparatus " made by 
Faraday for the purpose of showing the unconscious pressure of the hands 
upon the table in what was called " table-turning " was given by him to my 
father in 1855 — and was for a long time in my possession. It consisted of two 
sheets of stiff millboard of royal octavo size, between which were laid, at right 
angles to the length of the boards, two cylindrical glass rods, each about five 
inches long and three-tenths of an inch in diameter. The upper board was 
thus supported on the glass rods, which acted as rollers. It was freely movable 
upon them to and fro when one placed the tips of the fingers of one or both 
of one's hands lightly on the board. A couple of elastic india-rubber bands 
were passed round the two boards transversely to their length so as to bind 
the boards together, but yet to allow of free back and forth movement of the 
upper board and to permit by the elasticity of the bands a small amount of 
lateral displacement. Faraday, having had several of his little pieces of 
apparatus manufactured, now invited would-be " table-turners " to make use 
of it. Such a " planchette " (as it was subsequently termed) was placed on 
the table beneath the fingers of each operator in a " table-turning " experiment, 
and it was found that whereas in previous experiments without a planchette 
the table had been made to move by the hands lightly resting on it, now there 
was no movement of the table but a slight forward displacement, more or less 
conspicuous, of the upper board of the planchette as it moved on its glass 
rollers under the gentle pressure of the operator's fingers. In this way Faraday 
showed that it was possible for honest experimenters to apply unconsciously a 
slight push to a table, and so for their united unconscious efforts to cause it 
to move or turn in a manner which was to them mysterious and supernatural, 
whereas when their fingers were separated from the table by the mobile plan- 
chette the " push " in each case merely caused the upper board of that little 
intermediary to move instead of acting upon the table itself. By the irony of 
human fate, Faraday's detective " planchette " was subsequently fitted with 
a pencil and used by " occultists " to obtain writing caused by the unconscious, 
though sometimes conscious, direction of its movements by the hands of an 
inquirer lightly laid on it. Such writing was interpreted by the " occultists " 
as " messages from the spirit world." On the other hand, " planchette- 
writing " and similar experimental methods offer to the psychologist a valuable 

E 



70 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

means of exploring the directive movements given unconsciously to the muscles 
of the body by the brain in many persons when thus subjected to properly 
guarded and well -devised experiment. 

Note G. — I may refer the reader to the account given in my little book, 
From an Easy Chair (Constable, 1909), p. 60, of a decisive experiment on 
this subject made by me in Charcot's laboratory at the Salpetriere Hospital 
some thirty years ago. A female out-patient there was supposed to acquire 
anaesthesia or want of sensation in the arm by holding in her hand a bar of 
iron connected with a voltaic battery so that the bar became magnetized when 
the battery was in action. At other times her arm and hand were proved to 
be normally sensitive. But when the iron bar was magnetized, sensation 
disappeared and (her face being turned away so that she could not see what 
was being done) large carpet needles were run into and through her hand and 
arm without causing in her the slightest indication of pain or of any knowledge 
that she had been pierced by the needles. The iron bar was held in the girl's 
hand for some minutes, and then the " making " of it into a magnet by allowing 
the electric current to pass to it was directed by Charcot himself, who gave 
"the word of command." At once, as the students and visitors saw and 
established by pricking the girl's arm with needles, there was apparently a 
complete loss of sensation, which returned, however, as soon as (by Charcot's 
spoken order) the electric current was stopped and the iron bar ceased to be a 
magnet. The tests were sufficiently severe and numerous, and watched with 
such care on various successive days, as to make it extremely improbable that 
the girl was pretending to insensibility. It is well established that such 
insensibility can be effectively produced in various ways. The question here 
was, " Is it due to the action of a magnet ? " By chance, after witnessing this 
experiment with Charcot, I had, and took, the opportunity of emptying the 
voltaic battery in use, when the room was cleared and no other person was 
present except a medical friend whom I took into my confidence as witness. 
An hour or so later Charcot returned with other visitors and the patient to 
repeat the demonstration. So when the emphatic order was given to " make 
contact" and the voltaic current was believed by Charcot's assistants and by 
every one present (except my medical friend and myself) to have made the 
iron bar into a magnet, no current passed, and the bar was not magnetized. 
Nevertheless the girl's arm was "anaesthetized" as usual with complete 
success, and the demonstration was as convincing as ever. The " suggestion " 
and conviction in the girl's mind set up by Charcot's word of command, " Make 
contact," was sufficient. There was no " magnetism " in operation at all, but 
merely the suggestion to her that the bar had become a magnet and that it 
being a magnet, her arm must, of course, become insensitive. I explained, 
with apologies to Charcot, what I had done, and his assistants at once verified 
the fact that the voltaic battery had been put out of action. The experiment 
was a decisive one, and I was at once forgiven by the great physician for the 
liberty I had taken and congratulated on having carried it through. 

Note H. — The various wonderful things here cited by Faraday as being 
heard and talked about by all in 1854, are, some of them, familiar to us under 
the same names sixty-two years later. But not all are familiar. In a later 
part of his discourse he speaks of " ring-swingers, table-turners, table-speakers " 
— names which, with perhaps the exception of the second, are not familiar at 
the present day. " Ring-swinging," I may say, was a mode of " divination " 
to be classed with " Bible-swinging " and the throwing of rods and other appeals 
to " chance," the revelations of which were supposed to be influenced by the 
interference of a tutelary deity, or demon. I am informed by Prof. Perry, F.R.S., 
that the old " caloric engine " mentioned by Faraday is now called the gas- 
engine or the petrol-engine or the Diesel motor. There has been no change in 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 71 

principle since 1852, but a great change in methods of applying the principle. 
These air-engines of 1851-4 were called heat-engines by men like Rankine and 
Thomson, but they were called caloric engines by the general public, especially 
in America. If an American had spoken of a " caloric engine " in 1854, he 
would have meant Ericsson's air-engine, which was used to drive a boat. The 
•" electric light " and the " magneto-electric machine " are, of course, great 
inventions which have now come into general use and vast importance. " Mes- 
merism," about which much that was fanciful and incorrect was, at one time, 
believed, is better known to-day under the name " hypnotism," and is concerned 
with a very real and remarkable mental condition, the study of which has 
yielded and is still yielding most important results. " Homoeopathy," in so 
far as it was the assertion that physiological disorders must be " cured " by 
drugs which produce similar disorders has been experimentally tested and 
rejected : it is no longer entertained as a serious proposition. " Odylism " has 
vanished into obscurity. It was the assertion of the existence of a mysterious 
force, called " odyl," by the Baron von Reichenbach in 1845, supposed to be 
connected with certain crystals, magnets, and the human body. The supposed 
facts brought forward by believers in this mysterious force were long ago 
shown to be illusions due in some instances to fraud and in others to hypnotic 
suggestion. Varieties of this form of illusion still nourish at the present day. 
" Perpetual motion " refers to the attempt to construct a piece of mechanism 
which, once set going, shall perpetually go on producing useful work without 
drawing on any external source of energy. In the eighteenth century the 
attempt excited a good deal of attention, but it is now recognized, after 
examination of a vast variety of proposed apparatus, that the result sought is 
one which is a contradiction of the fundamental laws of matter and motion. 
" The Pasilalinic sympathetic compass " is perhaps the most foolish and 
ridiculous of all the fanciful pretences to discovery cited by Faraday. Accord- 
ing to the article in Chambers's Journal, 1851, referred to by Faraday, a trans- 
lation from the French of a M. Jules Allix, two French experimenters had 
discovered that individuals of the common snail have a mysterious sympathy 
with one another, and actually influence at a distance and determine the 
movements of other snails — even at a great distance. These experimenters are 
related to have shown that snails kept under observation in New York cause 
" sympathetic " movements corresponding to their own in similar snails kept 
in Paris. The " experimenters " state that they suppose that threads like the 
gossamer of spiders issue from snails and keep them in communication with 
one another, and that these threads are infinitely fine and invisible, and can 
be extended to such vast length as to connect snails separated from one another 
by the Atlantic Ocean. Accordingly the "discoverers" of this invisible 
connexion between widely separated snails introduce for their pretended 
discovery the name " Pasilalinic — which is being translated " universal 
talking — sympathetic compass." The whole story is obviously rubbish. But 
whether it was a hoax which was played on the editor of Chambers' 's Journal or 
a jocose parody of the effusions of the mesmerists and " odylists " of the day, 
does not appear. Had it first appeared in recent years it might reasonably be 
regarded as a burlesque of the assertions of the believers in " thought trans- 
ference " and " brain-waves " and their pretentious invention of the word 
" telepathy," which is fairly matched by the word " Pasilalinic." Faraday 
refers again to the snails on page 64. 

Note I. — Faraday here speaks of " clear ideas as to what is possible and 
what is impossible." The terms "possible" and "impossible" are liable to 
lead to misconception, and as a rule they are to be avoided in the discussion 
of narratives of extraordinary or marvellous occurrences. A statement of a 
supposed occurrence may be logically absurd. It may involve a contradiction 



2 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

in terms, and then it would be correct to call the supposed occurrence " impos- 
sible." But it is generally recognized at the present day that the proper 
attitude of the scientific inquirer when confronted with the narration of a 
supposed marvel is not the consideration of its improbability or impossibility, 
but simply the taking of steps to decide whether the fact is or is not as narrated. 
He must demand the evidence in favour of the supposed marvel and examine 
it and determine its value. If he thinks the narration so highly improbable 
and the persons who make it so little likely to be correct in their observation 
and statement that his time will be wasted if given to its examination he can, 
of course, decline to occupy himself with the matter. But he is not justified 
in stating that the occurrence is " impossible " and that on that account he 
will not inquire into it, unless it is in its terms a logical absurdity or else 
necessarily involves the direct denial of some established principle which he 
can at once demonstrate to be operative in this particular matter. An impres- 
sive warning as to the need for great caution in using the unqualified word 
" impossible " is furnished by the example given by the French philosopher, 
Comte, of something " which is conceivable and yet is now for ever impossible." 
He gave as his example a knowledge as to what chemical elements are present 
in the sun and stars — a thing readily conceivable, but for ever, he said, out of 
the bounds of possibility. Within twelve years of Comte' s assertion the 
determination of the bright lines characteristic of each of the chemical elements 
as shown by the spectroscope when applied to the light given off by each of 
them in the incandescent condition was made known, and these lines were 
found to be identical with lines in the spectrum of the fight of the sun and 
some fixed stars. By this identification the presence of certain chemical 
elements in the heavenly bodies was ascertained, and what Comte had chosen 
as an example of something impossible though conceivable was accomplished. 
On the other hand, we say it is "impossible" to create force or annihilate 
matter, because such proceedings involve a contradiction in terms. When we 
say this we use the words " create " and " annihilate " in a strict sense as 
terms defined to mean operations beyond human experience and power. In a 
less strict and secondary, somewhat figurative sense, we are justified in saying 
that we continually " create " and " annihilate" both matter and force — that 
is to say, we cause matter and force to appear or become obvious to our senses 
here and now in various forms. On other occasions we cause them to disappear. 
Even Milton did not imagine " the creation " of animals out of nothing, but 
described it as a transformation of existing matter — a " bringing forth " or 
birth from the womb of the earth. But the physical philosopher uses the 
terms " create " and " annihilate " in a strict and absolute sense — meaning 
"produce from nothing" and "reduce to nothing" — and rightly does not 
hesitate to assert that they are both " impossibilities." 

Note K. — This question has been answered by the modern theory of 
"permeability." It is not a matter of polarities. Iron is more highly per- 
meable than a vacuum, that is to say, than ether unaffected by the presence of 
matter, whilst bismuth is less permeable than ether. 

Note L. — In an article published in the Rationalist Press Association's Annual 
for 1915 with the title. " Science and the Limits of Belief," I wrote as follows, 
without any recollection at the time of the advocacy by the great Faraday of a 
numerical expression of " the amount of belief " in the mind of one who as a 
rule contents himself with vaguely indicating that he believes this or that : 

" Turning now from the specific question of belief in ghosts or spirits to the 
question of belief in general, we must all admit that the word ' belief ' is a 
misleading one, since it is applied to a condition of mind which presents such 
varieties of intensity that, unless some measure of that intensity is given by 
one who uses it, there are apt to be confusion and misunderstanding. When 



OBSERVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION 73 

a man wishes to express the highest degree of conviction as to some future 
occurrence — for instance, that the sun will appear above the horizon to-morrow 
— he says that he has the ' belief ' that it will do so. He ' believes,' or has the 
belief, that all living things, including himself, will sooner or later die. He 
' believes ' that if he throws a heavy body into the air it will fall to the ground. 
But if he is asked whether a friend is in London about whose movements he 
is incompletely informed, he will say : ' I believe that he is.' He will say 
that he has the ' belief ' that it is ' unlucky ' to start on a journey on a Friday, 
or to sit down to dinner in a party of thirteen. 

"It is clear that these ' beliefs ' are of very different degrees of intensity, 
and it would often help towards the definite expression of one's state of mind 
were separate words used to convey the degrees of intensity of a belief, or if a 
numerical scale were used for the purpose like that of a thermometer. One 
would say of those beliefs which are based on demonstration and repeated 
verification, or on the probability of the continuation of the order of events 
observed by mankind from time immemorial : ' My belief about this is 100.' 
With regard to some probabilities one would place it at 85 : or, again, at 50 
(an even 'chance,' as it is called). And so on down to 5, 3, and 1, the last 
indicating the merest inkling of a belief, and meaning no ' belief ' at all. 
Then we should come to beliefs below zero — namely, greater or less intensity 
of the ' belief ' that the thing propounded or the conditions leading to its 
occurrence do not exist. It would be of some interest to the student of the 
human mind were educated men who express their ' belief ' in the ' existence ' 
of ghostly ' entities ' and ' discarnate intelligences interacting with us on the 
material side ' willing to classify their ' beliefs ' by reference to such a scale. 

" An important feature about the intensity of a belief is that it exists often 
at a very high degree in persons who admit that they are unable to give reason- 
able ground for that belief, and are unable to state how they have become 
possessed of it. The emotional conditions of hope, fear, love, and hate produce 
this result, and are excited by rhetoricians in order to implant beliefs in their 
hearers' minds. Similar is the effect of that remarkable suspension of the 
reasoning process and subjection of the mind to ' suggestion ' which is called 
' hypnotism.' The intensity of the ' beliefs ' suggested by external agents to 
an individual whose brain is in the ' hypnotized ' condition (resembling, if not 
identical with, that which occurs in sleep-walking) is sufficiently high to lead 
to the action — possibly of a violent or dangerous character — which is the 
habitual outcome of the belief. But since the belief is implanted by the 
deliberately false or arbitrary suggestion of an experimenter (so-called 
' operator ' ), or by the accidental influence of some sight, sound, smell, or 
touch upon the brain of an individual who has ' fallen ' (as we all do more or 
less at times) into the condition like that of sleep-walking — with the reasoning 
faculty in abeyance — the actions of such persons appear astonishing and 
ludicrous to onlookers. Thus we see that the intensity of a belief is no measure 
of the probability of its truth, and that there are exceptional or unhealthy con- 
ditions of the brain in which preposterous beliefs may become implanted in men 
who are usually capable of sound thought, and even of scientific discovery. 

" When we appreciate the fact that a ' belief ' is a state of mind which may 
be produced by the thorough application of the scientific method, or, on the 
other hand, by hypnotism, it becomes obvious that we cannot logically contrast 
' scientific knowledge ' and ' belief.' The word ' belief ' is often used to signify 
' mere belief,' or ' empty belief,' or ' fanciful belief,' which is not based on 
experiment and verification. When some one says, ' I believe that this is 
so-and-so,' it is necessary, if we are to apprehend his state of mind, that he 
should state the evidence on which his ' belief ' is founded and the degree of 
probability which exists that the belief is a correct interpretation of the 



74 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

evidence. Moreover, it is the fact that there is as great need to look into the 
meaning of the word ' knowledge ' and what we ' know ' as there is to be 
careful about what we mean by a ' belief.' What can we ' know ' of what 
we call ' matter,' or of what we call ' mind ' ? The answer is, so far as the 
ultimate nature of either is concerned, ' Nothing ! ' " 

Note M. — Professor Baker, by purifying hydrogen and oxygen to a point 
not previously attained, has discovered that the combination of these gases is 
delayed under all conditions, even those which determine instantaneous com- 
bination of mixtures of the two gases not previously brought to this high 
degree of purity. We have here the suggestion that a " catalyzing'* impurity 
may not be merely an accelerator, but a necessary adjuvant for chemical 
combination in many cases where the rapid occurrence of combination is usually 
ascribed to supposed " great " or urgent affinity. 

Note N. — The statement by Faraday that a man " has no right " to make 
a statement and to declare that it is the duty of others to prove him right or 
wrong, is, perhaps, open to misinterpretation. It is difficult to show that a 
man " has no right " — putting it in that bald, unqualified way — to say or to 
do many things which according to the circumstances and occasion may be 
or may not be deserving of condemnation. In the case which Faraday is 
considering — that of the assertor of a new thing who demands an answer in 
the form of " Yes " or " No " to his assertion — the fact is that he has a perfect 
" right " as a " citizen of a free country " to make a foolish demand, compliance 
with which he cannot enforce. Supposing that at the same time he claims to 
be judged as a reasonable being — it is clear that " he has no right," as such, 
to conclude that his assertion is correct or in any way verified by the refusal 
or even the inability of the person or persons addressed by him to give him 
the answer " Yes " or " No." Nor have interested bystanders, if claiming to 
be guided by reason, the right to conclude that his assertion is correct because 
no one undertakes to show that it is incorrect. That method of " forcing a 
conclusion" is rarely admitted even in a court of law or a friendly debate. 
Yet it is true to-day as it was sixty years ago, that the wonder-monger and the 
scaremonger are encouraged to make fantastic statements and to demand 
that they shall be either accepted as true or else shown to be false, because a 
large portion of the public is habitually unreasonable and prefers the emotional 
excitement accompanying credulity to the suspension of judgment and the 
ultimate certainty proper to the exercise of reason. The education of the youth 
of all classes in the methods and results of the natural sciences, as advocated in 
these lectures, is the only cure for the dangerous, and possibly disastrous state 
of irrationality which still prevails in the most highly civilized communities. 

Note 0. — Faraday does not here refer to photographs in colours — such as 
are obtained by the Lumiere process, invented long after his death, but to the 
reproduction of the varied colours of natural scenes and objects by correspond- 
ing variations of paler or darker tint in the photographer's monotone pictures. 

- Note P. — The number of metals at present known to chemists has been 
increased from -the fifty known in 1854 to sixty-three. In addition to these 
metals, eighteen non-metallic elements are known at the present day (1916). 

Note Q. — The " state of the subject " revealed by the clergyman's note in 
1854 persists to a very large extent at the present moment. There are to-day 
but few clergymen or other persons who have " enjoyed " a university educa- 
tion who are competent to deal with the preposterous statements in regard to 
" occultism " and such pretended " wonders " which are constantly in circula- 
tion. The ignorance of the well-to-do class and the readiness of newspaper 
editors to enliven their columns with baseless gossip, and of newspaper readers 
to feed their minds with it, still lead to the propagation of such false reports 
as that cited by Faraday's correspondent. E. Ray Lankester. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF 

LANGUAGE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION 

FOR ALL CLASSES 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S. 

The subject I have the honour of illustrating is " The Impor- 
tance of the Study of Language as a means of Education for all 
Classes." 

I open it by drawing a distinction. 

A little consideration will show that that difference between 
the study of a given subject in its general and abstract and the 
study of one in its applied or concrete form, which finds place 
in so many departments of human knowledge, finds place in 
respect to Language and Languages. It finds place in the 
subject before us as truly as it does in that science which one 
of my able successors will have the honour of illustrating — the 
science of the laws of Life — Physiology or Biology. Just as 
there is therein a certain series of laws relating to life and 
organization, which would command our attention if the whole 
animal and vegetable world consisted of but a single species, so 
the study of Speech would find place in a well-devised system. 
of education, even if the tongues of the whole wide world were 
reduced to a single language, and that language to a single 
dialect. This is because the science of life is one thing, the 
science of the forms under which the phenomena of life are 
manifested, another. And just as Physiology, or Biology, is,. 
more or less, anterior to and independent of such departments, 
of study as Botany and Zoology, so, in the subject under notice,, 
there is the double division of the study of Language in respect, 
to structure and development, and the study of Languages as 



76 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

instances of the variety of form in which the phenomenon of 
human speech exhibits, or has exhibited, itself. Thus — 

When (as I believe once to have been the case) there was 
but a single language on the face of the earth, the former of 
these divisions had its subject-matter. And — 

When (as is by no means improbable) one paramount and 
exclusive tongue, developed, at first, rapidly and at the expense 
of the smaller languages of the world, and, subsequently, slowly 
and at that of the more widely diffused ones, shall have replaced 
the still numerous tongues of the nineteenth century ; and 
when all the dialects of the world shall be merged into one 
Universal Language, the same subject-matter for the. study of 
the structure of Language, its growth and changes, will still 
exist. 

So that the study of Language is one thing, the study of 
Languages, another. 

They are different ; and the intellectual powers that they 
require and exercise are different also. The greatest compara- 
tive philologists have, generally, been but moderate linguists. 

A certain familiarity with different languages they have, of 
course, had ; and as compared with that of the special scholar 
— the Classic or the Orientalist, for instance — their range of 
language (so to say) has been a wide one ; but it has rarely 
been of that vast compass which is found in men after the 
fashion of Mezzofanti, etc. — men who have spoken languages 
by the dozen, or the score ; — but who have left comparative 
philology as little advanced as if their learning had beem 
bounded by the limits of their own mother tongue. 

Now this difference, always of more or less importance in 
itself, increases when we consider Language as an object of 
education ; and it is for the sake of illustrating it that the 
foregoing preliminaries have been introduced. No opinion is 
given as to the comparative rank or dignity of the two studies ; 
no decision upon the nobility or ignobility of the faculties 
involved in the attainment of excellence in either. The 
illustration of a difference is all that has been aimed at. There 
is a difference between the two classes of subjects, and a 
difference between the two kinds of mental faculties. Let us 
make this difference clear. Let us also give it prominence and 
importance. 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 77 

One main distinction between the study of Language and the 
study of Languages lies in the fact of the value of the former 
being constant, that of the latter, fluctuating. The relative 
importance of any two languages, as objects of special attention, 
scarcely ever remains steady. The value, for instance, of the 
German — to look amongst the contemporary forms of speech — - 
has notably risen within the present century. And why ? 
Because the literature in which it is embodied has improved. 
Because the scientific knowledge which, to all who want the 
key, is (so to say) locked up in it, has increased some hundred 
per cent. 

But it may go down again. Suppose, for instance, that hew 
writers of pre-eminent merit ennoble some of the minor 
languages of Europe — the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, etc. Such 
a fact would divide the attention of savants — attention which 
can only be bestowed upon some second, at the expense of 
some first, object. In such a case, the extent to which the 
German language got studied would be affected much in the 
same way as that of the French was by the development of the 
literature of Germany. 

Or the area over which a language is spoken may increase ; 
as it may, also, diminish. 

Or the number of individuals that speak it may multiply — 
the area being the same. 

Or the special application of the language, whether for the 
purposes of commerce, literature, science, or politics, may 
become changed. In this way, as well as in others, the English 
is becoming, day by day, more important. 

There are other influences. 

High as is the value of the great classical languages of Greece 
and Rome, we can easily conceive how that value might be 
enhanced. Let a manuscript containing the works of some of 
the lost, or imperfectly preserved, writers of antiquity be 
discovered. Let, for instance, Gibbon's desiderata — the lost 
Decads of Livy, the Orations of Hyperides, or the Dramas of 
Menander — be made good : the percentage of classical scholars 
would increase ; little or much. 

Some years back it was announced that the Armenian 
language contained translations, made during the earlier 
centuries of our era, of certain classical and ecclesiastical 



78 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

writings, of which the originals had been lost — lost in the 
interval. This did not exactly make the Armenian, with its 
alphabet of six-and-thirty letters, a popular tongue ; but it 
made it, by a fraction, more popular than it was in the days of 
Whiston and La Croze when those two alone, of all the learned 
men of Europe, could read it. 

Translations tell in another way. Whatever is worth reading 
in the Danish and Swedish is forthwith translated into German. 
E.g. Professor Rctzius of Stockholm wrote a good Manual of 
Anatomy. He had the satisfaction of seeing it translated into 
German. He had the further satisfaction of hearing that the 
translation ran through five editions in less time than the 
original did through one. 

Now, if the Germans were to leave off translating, the value 
of the language in which Professor Retzius wrote his Anatomy 
would rise. 

Upon the whole, the French is, perhaps, the most important 
language of the nineteenth century ; yet it is only where we 
take into consideration the whole of its elements of value. To 
certain special savants, the German is worth more ; to the artist, 
the Italian ; to the American, the Spanish. It fell, too, in 
value because it became less indispensable ; and another cause, 
now in operation, affects the same element of indispensability. 
The French are beginning to learn the languages of other nations. 
Their own literature will certainly be none the worse for their 
so doing. But it by no means follows that that literature will 
be any the more studied ; on the contrary, Frenchmen will 
learn English more, and, pro tanto, Englishmen learn French 
less. 

If all this has illustrated a difference, it may also have done 
something more. It may have given a rough sketch, in the 
way of classification, of the kind of facts that regulate the value 
of special languages as special objects of study. At any rate 
(and this is the main point), the subject-matter of the present 
Address is narrowed. It is narrowed (in the first instance at 
least) to the consideration of that branch of study whereof the 
value is constant ; for assuredly it is this which will command 
more than a moiety of our consideration. 

This may be said to imply a preference to the study of 
Language as opposed to that of Languages — a singular prefer- 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 79 

ence, as a grammarian may, perhaps, be allowed to call it. It 
cannot be denied that, to a certain extent, such is the case ; 
but it is only so to a certain extent. The one is not magnified 
at the expense of the other. When all has been said that logic 
or mental philosophy can say about the high value of compara- 
tive philology, general grammar, and the like, the lowest value 
of the least important language will still stand high, and pre- 
eminently high that of what may be called the noble Languages. 
No variations in the philological barometer, no fluctuations in 
the Exchange of Language, will ever bring down the advantage 
of studying one, two, or even more foreign languages to so low 
a level as to expel such tongues as the Latin, the Greek, the 
French, or the German, one and all, from an English curriculum 
r— and vice versa, English from a foreign one. 

Now, if this be the case, one of the elements in the value of 
the study of Language in general will be the extent to which it 
facilitates the acquirement of any one language in particular, 
and this element of value will be an important — though not 
the most important — one. 

The structure of the human body is worth knowing, even if 
[the investigator of it be neither a practitioner in medicine nor a 
teacher of anatomy ; and, in like manner, the structure of the 
human language is an important study irrespective of the particular 
jforms of speech whereof it may facilitate the acquirement. 

The words on the diagram-board will now be explained. 
They are meant to illustrate the class of facts that comparative 
philology supplies. The first runs — 

KLEIN : CLEAN : : PETIT : PETITUS. 

It shows the extent to which certain ideas are associated. It 
shows, too, something more ; it shows that such an association 
s capable of being demonstrated from the phenomena of 
anguage instead of being a mere a priori speculation on the 
part of the mental philosopher. 

Klein is the German for little ; clean is our own English 
idjective, the English of the Latin word munolus. In German 
:he word is rein. * 

Now, notwithstanding the difference of meaning in the two 
;ongues, clean and klein are one and the same word. Yet, how 
ire the ideas of cleanliness and littleness connected ? The 



80 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Greek language has the word hypocorisma, meaning a term oj 
endearment, and the adjective hypocoristic. Now, clean-ness, or 
neat-ness, is one of the elements that make hypocoristic terms 
(or terms of endearment) applicable. And so is smallness. We 
talk of pretty little dears, a thousand times, where we talk oi 
pretty big dears once. This, then, explains the connexion ; this 
tells us that clean in English is klein in German, word for word. 

You doubt it, perhaps. You shake your head, and say that 
the connexion seems somewhat indefinite ; that it is just one 
of those points which can neither be proved nor disproved. Be 
it so. The evidence can be amended. Observe the words 
petit and petitus. Petit (in French) is exactly what klein is in 
German, i.e. little. Petitus (in Latin) is very nearly what 
clean is in English, i.e. desired, or desirable. That petit comes 
from petitus is undeniable. 

Hence, where the German mode of thought connects the 
ideas of smallness and cleanness, the Latin connects those oi 
smallness and desirability ; so that as petit is to petitus, so \i 
klein to clean. In the diagram this is given in the formula oi 
a sum in the Rule of Three. 

The words just noticed explain the connexion of ideas in the 
case of separate words. The forthcoming help us in a mucr 
more difficult investigation. What is the import of sue! 
sounds as that of the letter s in the word father-,? ? It is the 
sign of the plural number. 

Such is the question — such the answer ; question and answe] 
connected in the word fathers solely for the sake of illustration 
Any other word, and any other sign of case, number, person, oj 
tense, would have done as well. 

But is the ansAver a real one ? Is it an answer at all ? Hov 
come such things as plural numbers, and signs of plural numbers 
into language ? How the particular plural before us came inte 
being, I cannot say ; but I can show how some plurals have 
Let us explain the following — 

NGI =1. NGI-N-DE = WE. 
NGO = THOU. NGO-N-DA = YE. 
NGU = HE. NGE-N-DA = THEY. 

DA = WITH. 

ME - CUM = ME. 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 81 

The da (or de) in the second column, is the sign of the plural 
number in a language which shall at present be nameless. It 
is also the preposition with. Now with denotes association ; 
association 'plurality. Hence 

Ngi - n - de = I + = we- 
Ngo - n - da = thou + = ye. 
Nge - n - da — he + = they. 

I This is just as if the Latins, instead of wo* and vos, said 
me-cum and te-cum. 

Such is the history of one mode of expressing the idea of 
plurality ; we can scarcely say of a plural number. The words 
plural number suggest the idea of a single word, like fathers, 
where the s is inseparably connected with the root, at least so 
far inseparably connected as to have no independent existence 
iof its own. Ngi-n-de, however, is no single word at all, but a 
pair of words in juxtaposition, each with a separate existence 
of its own. But what if this juxtaposition grow into amalgama- 
tion ? What if the form in da change ? What if it become t 
or 2, or th, or s ? What if, meanwhile, the separate preposition 
da change in form also ; in form or meaning, or, perhaps, in 
both ? In such a case a true plural form is evolved, the history 
'of its evolution being a mystery. 
* So much for one of the inflections of a noun. The remaining 
words illustrate one of a verb. 

Hundreds of grammarians have suggested that the signs of 
the persons in the verb might be neither more nor less than the 
personal pronouns appended, in the first instance, to the verb, 
but afterwards amalgamated or incorporated with it. If so> 
jthe -m in inqua-m, is the m in me, etc. The late Mr. Garnett, a 
| comparative philologist whose reputation is far below his 
(merits, saw that this was not exactly the case. He observed 
that the appended pronoun was not so much the Personal as 
fthe Possessive one : that the analysis of a word like inqua-m 
I was not so much, say + I, as saying + my ; in short, that the 
verb was a noun, and the pronoun either an adjective (like 
mens) or an oblique case (like mei), agreeing with, or governed 
by, it. 

It is certainly so in the words before you. In a language, 
which, at present, shell be nameless, instead of saying my 



82 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

apple, thy apple, they say what is equivalent to apple-m, 
apple-th, etc. ; i.e. they append the possessive pronoun to the 
substantive, and by modifying its form, partially incorporate 
or amalgamate it. They do more than this. They do (as the 
diagram shows us) precisely the same with the verbs in their 
personal as they do with the nouns in their possessive relations. 
Hence, olvas-om, etc., is less / read than my-reading ; less 
read + 1, than reading + my. 





1 


— OM 


= I READ. 


OD 


= THOU READEST 


UK 


= WE READ. 


ATOK 


= YE READ. 


lA— M 


2 
= MY APPLE. 


D 


= THY APPLE. 


NK 


= OUR APPLE. 



TOK = YOUR APPLE. 

I submit that facts of this kind are of some value, great or 
small. But the facts themselves are not all. How were they 
got at ? They were got at by dealing with the phenomena of 
language as we found them, by an induction of no ordinary 
width and compass ; and many forms of speech had to be 
investigated before the facts came out in their best and most 
satisfactory form. 

The illustration of the verb (olvasom, and almam, etc.) is 
from the LIungarian ; that of the plural number (nginde, etc.), i 
from the Tumali — the Tumali being a language no nearer than 
the negro districts to the south of Kordovan, between Sennaar 
and Darfur, and (as such) not exactly in the highway of 
literature and philology. 

Now I ask whether there be, or whether there be not, certain 1 
branches of inquiry which are, at one and the same time, 
recognized to be of the highest importance, and yet not even 
remarkable for either unanimity of opinion, precision of 
language, or distinctness of idea on the part of their professors. 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 83 

I ask whether what is called, with average clearness, Mental 
Philosophy, and, with somewhat less clearness, Metaphysics, 
be not in this predicament ? I ask whether, in this branch of 
investigation, the subject-matter do not eminently desiderate 
something definite, palpable, and objective, and whether these 
same desiderated tangibilities be not found in the wide field of 
j Language to an extent which no other field supplies ? Let 
I this field be a training-ground. The facts it gives are of value. 
The method it requires is of value. 

As the languages of the world, the forms of speech mutually 
unintelligible, are counted by the hundred, and the dialects by 
the thousand, the field is a large one — one supplying much 
exercise, work, and labour. But the applications of the results 
obtained are wide also ; for, as long as any form of mental 
philosophy remains susceptible of improvement, as long as its 
improved form remains undiffused, so long will a knowledge of 
the structure of language in general, a knowledge of compara- 
tive philology, a knowledge of general grammar (for we may 
choose our term), have its use and application. And, assuredly, 
this will be for some time. 

As to its special value in the particular department of the 
ethnologist, high as it is, I say nothing, or next to nothing, 
about it ; concerning myself only with its more general 
applications. 

Let it be said, then, that the study of language is eminently 
disciplinal to those faculties that are tasked in the investigation 
Of the phenomena of the human mind ; the value of a know- 
ledge of these being a matter foreign to the present dissertation, 
but being by no means low. High or low, however, it measures 
that of the studies under notice. 

But how is this general philology to be taught ? Are youths 
to seek for roots and processes in such languages as the Hun- 
garian and the Tumali ? No. The teaching must be by 
haeans of well-selected suggestive examples, whereby the student 
may rise from particulars to generals, and be taught to infer 
i-Jie uncertain from the certain. I do not say that the s in 
fathers arose exactly after the fashion of the Tumali plural ; 
but, assuredly, its development was the same in kind, if not in 
letail. At all events, language must be dealt with as a growth. 

In the first stage of speech, there are no inflections at all, 



84 XECTURES ON EDUCATION 

separate words serving instead of them : just as if, instead of 
saying fathers, we said father many, or father father ; reduplica- 
tion being one of the makeshifts (so to say) of this period. The 
languages allied to the Chinese belong to this class. 

In the second stage, the separate words coalesce, but not so 
perfectly as to disfigure their originally separate character. 
The Hungarian persons have illustrated this. Language now 
becomes what is called agglutinate. The parts cohere, but the 
cohesion is imperfect. The majority of languages are agglu- 
tinate. 

The Latin and Greek tongues illustrate the third stage. The 
parts originally separate, then agglutinate, now become so 
modified by contact as to look like secondary parts of a single 
word ; these original separate substantive characters being a 
matter of inference rather than a patent and transparent fact. 
The s in fathers (which is also the s in patre-s and Trarepe-?) is 
in this predicament. 

Lastly, inflections are replaced by prepositions and auxiliary 
verbs, as is the case in the Italian and French when compared 
with the Latin. 

Truly, then, may we say that the phenomena of speech are 
the phenomena of growth, evolution, or development ; and as 
such must they be taught. A cell that grows — not a crystal 
that is built up — such is language. 

But these well-devised selections of suggestive examples, 
whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, etc.. 
is not to be found in the ordinary grammars. Indeed, it is the 
very reverse of the present system ; where there are twenty 
appeals to the memory in the shape of what is called a rule, foi 
one appeal to the understanding in the shape of an illustrated 
process. So much the worse for the existing methods. 

Moulds applied to growing trees — cookery-book recipes foi 
making a natural juice — these are the parallels to the artificia 
systems of grammar in their worst forms. The better can b< 
excused, sometimes recommended ; even as the Linnseai 
system of botanical teaching can, in certain cases, be used witl 
safety, 'provided always that its artificial character he explainet 
beforehand, and insisted on throughout. 

To stand on the level of the Linnsean system, an artificia 
grammar must come under the following condition : It mus 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 85 

leave the student nothing to unlearn when he comes to a natural 
one. 

How can this be done ? It can be done, if the grammarian 
will be content to teach forms only, leaving processes alone. 
Let him say (for instance) that the Latin for : 

I call is voc-o. 

Thou callest, voc-as. 
Calling, voc-ans. 

I called, voc-avi, etc. 

But do not let him say that active aorists are formed from 
futures, and passive ones from the third person singular of the 
perfect. His forms, his paradigms, will be right ; his rules, in 
nine cases out of ten, wrong. I am satisfied that languages can 
be taught without rules, and by paradigms only. 

This recognition of what has been called artificial grammar 
for the teaching of special languages, as opposed to the general 
grammar of the comparative philologist, should serve to 
anticipate an objection. " Would you," it may be asked, 
" leave the details of languages like the Latin, Greek, French, 
German, etc. — languages of eminent practical utility — untaught 
until such time as the student shall have dipped into Chinese, 
touched upon Hungarian, and taken a general idea of the 
third stage from the Latin, and of the fourth from the French ? 
If so, the period of life when the memory for words is strongest 
will have passed away before any language but his own mother- 
tongue has been acquired." 

The recognition of such a thing as artificial grammar answers 
this in the negative. If a special language be wanted, let it 
be taught betimes : only if it cannot be taught in the most 
scientific manner, let it be taught in a manner as little 
unscientific as possible. 

In this lies an argument against the ordinary teaching 
(I speak as an Englishman) of English. What do we learn 
by it ? 

In the ordinary teaching of what is called the grammar of 
the English language there are two elements. There is some- 
thing professed to be taught which is not, but which, if taught, 
would be worth learning ; and there is something which, from 
being already learned better than any man can teach it, requires 

F 



86 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

no lessons. The one (the latter) is the use and practice of the 
English tongue. This the Englishman has already. The other 
is the principles of grammar. With existing text-books this 
is an impossibility. What then is taught ? Something (I am 
quoting from what I have written elsewhere) undoubtedly. 
The facts that language is more or less regular ; that there is 
such a thing as grammar ; that certain expressions should be 
avoided, are all matters worth knowing. And they are all 
taught even by the worst method of teaching. But are these 
the proper objects of systematic teaching ? Is the importance 
of their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, and the 
displacement of more valuable subjects which are involved in 
their explanation ? I think not. Gross vulgarity of language 
is a fault to' be prevented ; but the proper prevention is to be 
got from habit — not rules. The proprieties of the English 
language are to be learned, like the proprieties of English 
manners, by conversation and intercourse ; and a proper 
school for both is the best society in which the learner is 
placed. If this be good, systematic teaching is superfluous ; if 
bad, insufficient. There are undoubted points where a young 
person may doubt as to the grammatical propriety of a certain 
expression. In this case let him ask some one older and more 
instructed. Grammar, as an art, is, undoubtedly, the art of 
speaking and writing correctly- — but then, as an art, it is only 
required for foreign languages. For our own we have the 
necessary practice and familiarity. 

The true claim of English grammar to form part and parcel 
of an English education stands or falls with the value of the 
philological knowledge to which grammatical studies may serve 
as an introduction, and with the value of scientific grammar as 
a disciplinal study. I have no fear of being supposed to under- 
value its importance in this respect. Indeed, in assuming that 
it^is very great, I also assume that wherever grammar is studied 
as grammar, the language which the grammar so studied should 
represent must be the mother-tongue of the student ; whatever 
hat mother-tongue may be — English for Englishmen, Welsh for 
Welshmen, French for Frenchmen, German for Germans, etc. 
This study is the study of a theory ; and for this reason it 
should be complicated as little as possible by points of practice. 
For this reason a man's mother-tongue is the best medium for 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 87 

the elements of scientific philology, simply because it is the one 
which he knows best in practice. 

Limit, then, the teaching of English, except so far as it is 
preparatory to the study of language in general ; with which 
view, teach as scientifically as possible. 

Go further. Except in special cases, limit the teaching of 
the classical tongues to one out of the two. One, for all disci- 
plinal purposes, is enough. In this, go far. Dead though the 
tongue be, and object of ridicule as the occupation is becoming, 
go to the length of writing verses, though only in a few com- 
moner metres. Go far, and go in one direction only. There 
are reasons for this singleness of path. I fear that there is 
almost a necessity. As long as men believed that the ordinary 
Latin and Greek grammars were good things of themselves, 
and that, even if they did not carry the student far into the 
classics, they told him something of value respecting language 
in general, a little learning in the dead languages was a good 
thing. But what if the grammars are not good things ? What 
if they are absolutely bad ? In such a case, the classical 
tongues cease to be learnt except for themselves. Now, one of 
the few things that is more useless than a little Latin is a little 
Greek. 

Am I wrong in saying that, with nine out of ten who learn 
both Latin and Greek, the knowledge of the two tongues con- 
jointly is not greater than the knowledge of one of them singly 
ought to be ? 

Am I wrong in believing that the tendencies of the age are 
in favour of decreasing rather than increasing the amount of 
time bestowed upon classical scholarship ? 

Unless I be so, the necessity for a limitation is apparent. 

To curtail English — to eliminate one of the classical tongues 
— possibly that of Pericles, at any rate, either that of Pericles 
or of Cicero — to substitute for the ordinary elements of a 
so-called classical education illustrations from the Chinese, the 
Hungarian, or the Tumali — this is what I have recommended. 

I cannot but feel that in so doing I may seem to some to 
have been false to my text, which was to eulogize things 
philological. They may say, Call you this backing your friends ? 
I do. It is not by glorifying one's own more peculiar studies 
that such studies gain credit. To show the permanent, rather 



88 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

than the accidental, elements of their value, is the best service 
that can be done for them. It is also good service to show that 
they can be taught with a less expenditure of time and labour 
than is usually bestowed on them. But the best service of all 
is to indicate their disciplinal value ; and to show that, instead 
of displacing other branches of knowledge, they so exercise 
certain faculties of the mind as to prepare the way to them. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY 

OF CHEMISTRY AS A BRANCH OF 

EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

By CHARLES G. B. DAUBENY, M.D., F.R.S. 

Professor of Chemistry and of Botany in the 
University of Oxford 

I can imagine one of the regular frequenters of this theatre, 
who had caught the first part only of the title which announces 
the Lecture I am about to deliver, marvelling not a little that 
your managers should have thought it worth their while to 
invite a professor from Oxford to indoctrinate the members of 
the Royal Institution with respect to the " Importance of 
Chemistry." 

That arguments for such a purpose might be useful in the 
provinces, or even to an academic body occupied for the most 
part on the literature of past ages, would appear but natural ; 
but that any considerations of the kind should be pressed upon 
the attention of those who are in the daily habit of watching 
the unfolding of those scientific truths of which this Institution 
may be said to be the birthplace, might seem to them little better 
than an unprofitable waste of time. 

I must, therefore, begin by reminding you that the subject 
of this Lecture is not the importance of chemistry, considered 
in itself, but only as it is an instrument of general education ; 
and, in this point of view, it appears to me that the very circum- 
stance which may to some appear to render such a discussion 
here superfluous, imparts to it a peculiar propriety, when we 
regard the place in which it is delivered, and the audience I am 
now addressing. 

Education, gentlemen, I need hardly say, is framed with 



90 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

reference to the requirements of the great mass of society, rather 
than of that small number of individuals who are capable of 
rising to eminence. Genius under any circumstances, and 
despite of almost every amount of discouragement, will carve 
for itself a path to distinction : it grows up under the most 
dissimilar modes of mental culture ; and is capable of extracting 
nourishment, for its own development, from the hardest and 
most indigestible food. 

But it is for the sake of those not intended by nature as the 
pioneers of discovery, or as the originators of new principles in 
science, that our systems of education are chiefly framed ; and 
such men would be rather deterred from the study than invited 
to it, by having put before them so frequently, as is the case 
within this theatre, the results of those original and profound 
investigations which have signalized the march of modern 
chemistry. 

In consequence of having their attention riveted upon points 
of scientific research, which are placed on heights to them 
inaccessible, they are the more likely to overlook the harvest 
that lay at their very feet, and which came within the compass of 
those powers and energies of mind, which fall to the common 
lot of mankind. 

It will therefore be my purpose to show, that even to those 
who do not feel within themselves the capacity of originating 
new truths, or even of fully apprehending the higher problems 
with which this science has to grapple, chemistry is a study, not 
only of lively interest, but also of great utility, with a view to 
attaining those objects which are aimed at in every complete 
and well-digested scheme of national education. 

And in employing the term " national education," I mean to 
include in it that of the highest as well as of the humblest grade 
of society ; for although the difference is great indeed between 
the completeness of the instruction provided, and consequently 
between the machinery employed, in these two cases, I can 
recognize no fundamental difference in the objects aimed at. 

Primary education, I conceive, independently of the reference 
it ought to have to the inculcation of right principles in religion 
and morality, objects which, although the most important of 
any, do not fall within the scope of this lecture — has two distinct 
ends to accomplish : namely, first, that of disciplining and 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 

developing the several powers of the mind ; and, secondly, 
that of imparting to it certain kinds of useful general information. 

Although some have insisted exclusively upon the former, 
whilst others have attached the greatest weight to the latter 
of these objects, it is certain that they can neither be disjoined 
in practice, nor ought to be separated in theory, by any judicious 
system of education. With the exception perhaps of logic and 
pure mathematics there are none of the sciences which do not 
at once supply materials for thought and reflection, as well as 
improve the faculty of apprehending and comparing them ; 
nor, on the other hand, would it be easy to pitch upon any 
species of knowledge worthy of a place in a system of liberal 
instruction which does not also, to a certain extent, exercise 
and discipline the understanding. 

This, however, supplies no reason why we should not keep 
distinct in theory the two ends above mentioned, and consider 
separately the best means by which each may be attained — 
and first, then, beginning with that which we regard as the more 
important of the two, let us consider what kind of education is 
likely to operate most effectually in disciplining and developing 
the mental organization. 

The intellectual principle in man is in its early state scarcely 
to be distinguished from the instinct of brutes, and is in some 
respects inferior to it ; but it yet contains within itself the 
capacity of reasoning, of imagination, of taste, of tracing 
resemblances, and thus of classifying the objects presented 
before it — the germs, in short, of all the powers and endowments 
which we find afterwards unfolded. In whatever degree these 
gifts may in each instance be apportioned, it is hardly possible 
to conceive a rational being totally destitute of any one of them ; 
incapable, that is, either of deducing inferences from the facts 
before him, of combining the images presented to his mind by 
the senses into new forms, of being pleasurably affected by 
certain arrangements of ideas more than by others, or of placing 
together individual facts in some sort of order or method. 

Now, it is the primary object of education to impart to each 
of these faculties its proper development, and no system which 
overlooks any one of them can be regarded as complete. Any 
method which should mature the judgment without calling into 
play the inventive faculty, or which cultivated the taste, to the 



92 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

neglect of the powers of classifying, combining, or reasoning 
upon the objects brought before the mind, must be condemned 
as defective. 

Now it will be my endeavour to show that the study of 
chemistry is conducive to more than one of the great ends above 
pointed out as the general aim of Education. 

It has been objected to, indeed, that its principles are as yet 
not sufficiently defined, or susceptible of that degree of mathe- 
matical precision which befits them for the purpose of training 
the powers of reasoning. 

Nor would I by any means desire that by those who have the 
leisure and ability to pursue to any extent the study of mathe- 
matics, chemistry should be admitted as a substitute. 

Whilst, however, there are many in every class of society, 
even, indeed, in the highest, upon whose minds abstract pro- 
positions scarcely take any hold ; there are probably none who 
would not reap advantage from having their attention directed 
to a class of subjects upon which the premises are presented to 
them in a more palpable form, and the conclusions to be de- 
duced are of that contingent character which bear a nearer 
analogy to those relating to the ordinary events of man's life. 

But the cultivation of the reasoning powers constitutes 
only a part, and even the smallest part, of the services rendered 
by chemistry in the cultivation of the intellect. No one of the 
physical sciences, perhaps, is equally well calculated to promote 
habits of close observation ; a rigorous attention to all the 
peculiarities of each phenomenon ; that aptitude in forming 
new combinations out of the impressions received from without, 
which constitutes imagination and gives birth to invention ; 
and that power of detecting similitudes and differences which 
enables the mind to arrange and classify in some sort of order 
the diversified objects presented to it. 

Nor is this so common an endowment as might be at first 
supposed. " One man," says Mr. Mill, " from inattention, or 
attending only in the wrong place, overlooks half of what he 
sees ; another sets down much more than he sees, confounding 
it with what he imagines, or with what he infers ; another 
takes note of the kind of all the circumstances, but being 
inexpert in estimating their degree, leaves the quantity of each 
vague and uncertain ; another sees, indeed, the whole, but 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 93 

makes such an awkward division of it into parts, throwing things 
into one mass which requires to be separated, and separating 
others which might more conveniently be considered as one, 
that the result is much the same, sometimes even worse, than 
if no analysis had been attempted at all. 

" To point out what qualities of mind or modes of mental 
culture fit a man for being a good observer is a question which 
belongs to the theory of education. There are rules of self- 
culture which render us capable of observing, as there are arts for 
strengthening the limbs.'''' * 

In ascribing to the study of this science all these several 
advantages, I am not, of course, considering it as if it were to be 
prosecuted exclusively from books, or consisted in the mere 
committal to memory of a certain number of facts and principles. 
The student who embarks with any degree of zeal or ardour in 
this branch of philosophy is almost irresistibly led on from 
theory to experiment, and becomes impelled by mere curiosity, 
if not by some higher motive, to observe with his own eyes, and 
to verify by his own senses, those properties of matter which 
verbal description can, after all, only faintly and imperfectly 
delineate. 

Once entered upon this line of pursuit, he engages in it with 
something of the same zest which the sportsman entertains in 
tracking his game — he soon begins to experience a personal 
pride in the success of his trials, and feels himself humbled in 
his own estimation, if they should chance to disappoint his 
anticipations. 

There is also always enough of uncertainty with respect to the 
success of an experiment, especially in unpractised hands, to 
keep awake his attention, and to bring the subject, as respects 
himself, under the category of contingent events. 

Every chemist, indeed, soon becomes aware on how many 
minute and apparently unimportant points the success of any 
of his processes depends, and how much incidental knowledge 
of other bodies, besides those upon which he is operating, 
becomes requisite, in order to guard against defeat. 

The student, also, after following for some time in the foot- 
steps of others, and satisfying himself by ocular proof of the 
* Mill's Logic, vol. i, p. 438. 



94 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

facts which first attracted his curiosity, is led on to question 
Nature himself for further information, and to engage in inde- 
pendent lines of research, which will, to a certain extent at least, 
partake of the character of originality. 

And here the inventive faculty is at once disciplined and 
excited ; for whilst his imagination is checked in its random 
flights by the penalty of failure imposed upon unsound and 
visionary speculation, his power of combining into new arrange- 
ments the ideas presented to his mind is promoted, by the 
necessity of contriving new processes, and of meditating upon 
what is likely to occur under another set of conditions. 

Illustrations of this will occur during every attempt at analysis, 
during the examination of every new substance submitted to 
the chemist. 

In each case the solution of the problem can only be arrived 
at by a number of tentative efforts, each of which requires, on 
the part of the operator, the exercise of invention, of memory, 
and of judgment. 

Simple as the principle elicited may appear to be, when the 
key to its solution has been found, often, indeed, the more 
simple in proportion to the elevated rank it holds amongst 
the truths of the science, the discoverer alone knows through 
how many devious paths of error the clue to its attainment had 
to be followed, and how much his own intellectual vigour was, 
in the meantime, promoted by the pursuit. 

Let me remind you, for instance, of that important yet simple 
law which established the connexion between electrical attrac- 
tion and chemical affinity, the investigation of which led the 
illustrious individual who first gave celebrity to this institution 
to some of the greatest discoveries of modern chemistry. 

We are at present so familiarized with the fact that water 
is resolved by voltaic electricity into oxygen and hydrogen 
gases alone, as to be scarcely able to estimate the difficulties 
that beset the earlier experimentalists, or to account for the 
number of conflicting hypotheses suggested for a phenomenon 
now considered as so simple. 

Nevertheless, when Davy first turned his attention to the 
subject, the constant association of acid with the oxygen, and 
of alkali, and even lime, with the hydrogen of the water decom- 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 95 

posed, complicated the phenomenon in such a manner that it 
was difficult to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of it. 

It required, perhaps, no particular sagacity to conjecture 
that these foreign ingredients might be derived from the vessels, 
or other bodies, in contact with the electrolyzed water, but the 
difficulty consisted in demonstrating that such was the case. 
Davy was soon led by this suspicion to discontinue the use of 
vegetable or animal substances for connecting the poles, finding 
that all such materials yielded, by their decomposition, muriatic 
acid ; and, for the same reason, he also abandoned glass vessels, 
as yielding soda. 

■ By substituting, therefore, agate for glass, and fibres of pure 
amianthus for cotton, he had reason to flatter himself that every 
source of fallacy had been removed ; but to his surprise, 
muriatic acid still made its appearance at the positive pole, and 
soda at the negative. 

Here a fanciful or an indolent operator might have been 
tempted to stop ; for at that period it was regarded by no means 
so self-evident as it may appear to us at present that such bodies 
as alkalies and acids might not be generated by an agent of 
which so little was known, and from whose mysterious operation 
everything might be expected. 

Davy, however, was not to be diverted from his inquiries by 
any such visionary speculations. By ascertaining that the 
quantity of saline matter diminished when the experiments 
were again and again repeated, he felt justified in concluding 
that the agate must have yielded it. Still, however, a constant, 
although a smaller quantity of alkali was generated in each 
experiment ; and to determine its source, cups of pure gold 
were substituted for those of agate. Yet, even then, the same 
alkali was obtained, and as the only other conceivable source 
was the water, this, though it had been already carefully dis- 
tilled, was submitted to analysis, and found to contain in the 
quart seven-tenths of a grain of saline matter. 

Davy now fancied that he should cut off every remaining 
source of error by re-distilling the water in silver vessels, with 
the most scrupulous care. The water was thus obtained in a 
state of absolute purity, but still the alkali, although diminished 
in quantity, did not altogether disappear when the water was 
electrolyzed. Upon a more critical examination, however, 



96 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

it turned out that the alkali thus generated was no longer soda, 
but ammonia. 

It thus appeared that even when every apparent means of 
impurity had been removed, alkaline matter was evolved during 
the electrolyzation of water ; and the same conclusion seemed 
deducible with respect to the other extraneous product, which, 
however, now that all vegetable matter had been excluded, 
Avas found to consist, not as before of muriatic, but of nitric 
acid. 

If then occurred to Davy's sagacious mind that both these 
products might have arisen from the affinity of the nitrogen 
of the surrounding air, for the oxygen of the water on the one 
hand, and for its hydrogen on the other. 

He therefore next performed the experiment under an 
exhausted receiver, employing for the purpose of electrolyzation 
water deprived of air by careful boiling. His method succeeded 
at least in cutting off the supply of ammonia, and thus satisfied 
him that he had hit upon the real cause of its previous 
occurrence. 

But a difficulty still remained to be got over ; for even under 
these circumstances nitric acid continued to be present, although 
in much smaller quantities than before. 

The crowning experiment therefore had still to be achieved ; 
the receiver under which the voltaic action was to take place, 
after being exhausted, was carefully filled with hydrogen, and 
then a second time exhausted, so as to secure the entire exclusion 
of atmospheric air. 

When this final step was taken, the operator had at length 
the satisfaction of finding that all sources of fallacy were 
removed, neither acid nor alkali being generated, even when 
the voltaic process had been continued during twenty-four 
hours ; thus justifying him in laying down, as now beyond the 
reach of doubt, that nothing but hydrogen and oxygen is 
produced by the decomposition of pure water. 






I have been the more disposed to dwell upon this particular 
train of research because it seems to me to place the philo- 
sophical character of Sir Humphry Davy under rather a 
different aspect than that in which superficial observers are 
wont to regard it : exhibiting him, not as the individual who 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 97 

by the sudden inspiration of his genius lighted at once upon 
those brilliant discoveries which changed the face of the science ; 
but as one who, by a long and laborious train of research, 
succeeded in realizing the vision which his sagacious intellect 
had, in the first instance, dimly conceived. 

If we regard, as the two most important services rendered by 
this great philosopher to his favourite science, the discovery of 
the alkaline and earthy Bases, and the correction of our views 
with respect to the nature of Chlorine — the former as being his 
greatest contribution to the facts of chemistry, the latter to its 
logic — we shall find that in both instances the results were 
arrived at by much patient inquiry, many minute and appa- 
rently trivial manipulations, and a tenacity of purpose not to 
be turned aside by the difficulties which everywhere beset his 
path. 

And it is well for the student thus to obtain a timely warning 
that such is the general case with genius, not merely when 
occupied in the walks of science, but also in every other branch 
of mental exertion — exemplified equally in a Davy and a 
Liebig, as in a Fox and a Sheridan ; for that by the same law 
which is found to prevail over the physical organization of 
man's nature, although we may digest, assimilate, and combine, 
with different degrees of facility, the materials placed within 
our reach, we cannot, in a strict sense, create them ; and, 
accordingly, that no intellect, however vigorous — no imagina- 
tion, however prolific — can operate to any good purpose, unless 
it has drawn largely from the intellectual stores of others, as 
well as from those accumulated by its own experience and 
observation. 

It is thus that the majestic Aloe, which pushes forth innu- 
merable blossoms in a single day, has had the materials which 
enabled it to achieve so astonishing an effort stored up within 
its cells by a long-continued process of assimilation, in readiness 
on the first favourable opportunity to become rapidly developed 
into an exuberance of flowers and of fruit. 

The establishment of the doctrine of atoms affords another 
striking instance of a number of minute, trivial, and apparently 
only technical investigations concurring to build up a theory 
which, as Sir John Herschel has truly said, is perhaps, after the 



98 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

laws of mechanics, the most important which the study of 
human nature has yet disclosed — a truth, indeed, which had 
occupied the minds of the first philosophers of antiquity 1 , but 
which it was reserved for the experimentalists of the present 
age fully to substantiate. 

Depending as it does on questions involving chiefly minute 
differences in weight and volume, it might seem at first sight 
to owe more to the skill of the balance-maker, and to the eye 
and hand of the operator, than to the sagacity which availed 
itself of the one, and which directed the other ; but those who 
take this low view of the matter should be reminded that the 
father of the atomic theory himself was by no means famous 
for skill in manipulating, but derived most of his success from 
his penetration in interpreting, and in combining together the 
facts of others. 

This association of minute details, with grand generalizations, 
will serve to show that Chemistry wields a weapon, like the 
trunk of an elephant, which can pick up a needle and uproot 
an oak ; or may be compared to the Genie of the Eastern fable, 
who, although rather a dangerous and unruly servant when 
directed by rash or ignorant masters, would stoop to the 
homeliest, and accomplish the most stupendous labours, when 
brought under the dominion of the Lamp. 

Nor, indeed, is Chemistry without its region of romance, even 
now that it has emancipated itself from the fictions of the 
Alchemist, and from the mysticism of the Rosicrucian philo- 
sophy. 

The Philosopher who, by the aid of his crucible and his 
balance, can thus obtain glimpses of the ultimate constitution 
of matter — who can pronounce with so much confidence on the 
relative weight and volume of corpuscles too minute, not only 
to be recognized by the senses, but even to be conceived by the 
imagination — who can render it probable that many substances 
which defy our powers of analysis are nevertheless compounds, 
and have been made to reveal their elements to a subtler 
alchemy than that of actual experiment — invests his subject, I 
conceive, in some degree, with the same attributes of grandeur 
and sublimity which we associate with the contemplation of 
the great works of external nature. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 99 

Let me remind you, for instance, of the speculations which 
are naturally suggested by considering the mutual convertibility 
of the several imponderable agents, light, heat, electricity, 
magnetism ; and by the relation of them all to mechanical 
force.* 

Let me bring before you those suggestions of my late friend 
Dr. Prout, as to the probability of all elementary bodies being 
exact multiples of hydrogen, to the realization of which idea 
we seem to be brought nearer by every year's additional 
experience."}* 

And let me, by reference to the Table suspended in the 
room,'!: point out to you the still further relation which can be 
traced between the numbers representing the atomic weights of 
several of these elements — relations which, as some of you may 
recollect, induced M. Dumas, at the Ipswich meeting of the 
British Association, two years ago, to place certain of them in 
groups, each consisting of three members, and to conjecture 
that one of each triad might be a compound of the other two. 

This, however, as has been pointed out in an ingenious paper 
by a young American chemist, § from whom I have borrowed 
the Table just referred to, may probably be considered as an 
imperfect and partial view of the subject ; and, it must be 
confessed, that in the existing state of our knowledge many 
hypotheses might be framed, all quite as plausible as that of 
the French philosopher. || 

Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied, after inspecting the 

* See Mr. Grove's Pamphlet on The Correlation of Physical Forces. 

t It has been suggested in the paper of the American chemist referred to just 
below, that the deviations from this rule, which still appear to exist in certain 
elements, may not always arise from error in experiment (although this is in 
most cases a sufficiently plausible explanation), but may hereafter be found 
to be a secondary result of the very cause which has determined the distribution 
of the atomic weights according to a numerical law, just as the perturbations 
in astronomy are a necessary consequence of the very law they seemed at first 
to invalidate. 

% ■ See Table I, p. 117, " Of the Relations between certain Elementary Bodies." 

§ Mr. Cooke, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard College, in Cambridge. U.S. 

j) I cannot, however, admit the soundness of Mr. Cooke's suggestion that 
the atoms of the nine series are formed of an atom of oxygen as a nucleus, with 
the addition of one or more groups of atoms, each weighing nine, to which 
the corresponding element has not yet been discovered ! We know that 
cyanogen, one of the series, is not so formed, for it is a compound of N 1 C 2, 
and as such, has been excluded from the list of bodies belonging to the nine 
series, although its atomic weight is 8 + n = 2. 



100 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

above Table, that there are really some remarkable relations 
between the atomic weights of those elements which are most 
nearly connected with each other by the circumstances of 
homology and of isomorphism, that is, by the similar proportions 
in which they respectively combine with other bodies, and by 
the similar crystallization of the resulting products. 

These relations, indeed, admit of being expressed alge- 
braically, in the case, at least, of some groups which have been 
most thoroughty investigated, just as may be done with 
reference to organic compounds, as may be seen by the Table 
of the Fatty Acids,* which is placed by the side of the one 
before referred to. 

Hence there would seem in this respect to be an analogy 
between the simple radicals of inorganic bodies and the com- 
pound ones which are recognized as existing in Organic 
Chemistry, each member of the latter group being formed by 
the addition of C 2 H 2 , or a multiple of the same, to the atoms 
composing the lowest member in the series, namely, formic 
acid. 

We may also detect in both instances a similar increase in 
density in proportion to the increase of atomic weight. Thus, 
in the former class of bodies, if we take the series of nines, 
oxygen is gaseous at all known temperatures and pressures ; 
chlorine becomes liquid under four atmospheres ; bromine 
is a volatile liquid at common temperatures ; iodine, whose 
atomic weight is highest, exists as an easily volatilizable 
solid. 

And in like manner, in the latter class of bodies, we find a 
transition from formic acid and methylic alcohol, substances 
of great volatility and low atomic weight, to the fatty acids, 
and to ethal, which are dense solids. 

These generalizations, indeed, must not be allowed to warp 
our experimental conclusions ; but they are eminently sugges- 
tive, and may be looked upon as examples of what may be 
termed the poetry of science, which is not without its use 
amongst the means of education, if only, like other poetry, it 
serves to impart a livelier conception of the beauty and harmony 
of creation, by affording experimental proof of that which the 
earliest sages of antiquity regarded as intrinsically probable, 
* See Table II, p. 118. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 101 

namely, that God had " ordered all things in measure, number, 
and weight." 

TravTa nerpw kcu apiO/uw ical crra6/ui(i) SieraPa? 

The study of Chemistry seems to me also peculiarly adapted 
to initiate the youthful mind in the office of tracing the natural 
affinities betwixt bodies, and thus to induce methodical and 
systematic views of that subordination of properties which is 
the basis of all classification. 

This is a service not to be rendered by the mathematical 
sciences, which proceed upon exact definitions, and habituate 
the mind to reject whatever does not come within the scope of 
rigorous deduction. For the relations between natural objects 
are based, not upon mutual identity, but upon degrees of 
resemblance ; and the characters of each of them pass by such 
imperceptible gradations into the next in the series that every 
classification must, to a certain extent, be considered arbitrary, 
inasmuch as the limits of the divisions recognized can never 
be strictly defined. 

Thus the class of metals graduates into that of the simple 
combustibles through the intervening links of sulphur and 
selenium; the acids into the bases through alumina; the 
supporters of combustion into the combustibles through sulphur 
and phosphorus ; the electrics into conductors through the 
fibre of the nerves and muscles of animals. 

The study of organic types, introduced by Dumas, and 
extended by Laurent and Gerhardt, may also initiate the mind 
^n the idea which serves as a key to all the arrangements in the 
natural sciences— an idea which will be equally serviceable in 
grouping together the facts concerning our moral nature and 
the ordinary transactions of life, namely, that of adopting for 
our classification of bodies some character of primary impor-' 
tance, whilst we neglect those minor differences which must 
ever exist between one individual object and another. 

Chemistry also appears to be calculated to afford useful 
lessons in the art of nomenclature. 

In no other of the sciences has so perfect a specimen of this 
kind been exhibited as by Guyton Morveau, in his adaptation 
of the names of chemical substances to the theory of Lavoisier ; 
and although the newer views entertained with" respect to the 



G 



102 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

nature of the combinations then recognized may have rendered 
some part of this nomenclature inapproj^riate, yet its original 
merits may be estimated by the fact that no modifications in 
it have been proposed except what were forced upon us by 
changes in theory, and that the principal attempts at nomen- 
clature since made have been rather extensions of the rules laid 
down in this scheme than a substitution of any new principle 
for the one which had served for their basis.* 

But it is time to hasten on to the second branch of my 
subject — namely, the propriety of making Chemistry a part 
of that kind of primary instruction which aims at imparting 
a certain amount of general information to the youthful 
mind. 

The crude notions so currently entertained with respect to 
what is called General Knowledge have created a prejudice 
against this Department of Education, which has induced many 
to contend that the sole aim of the latter is to train and develop 
the powers of the understanding. 

Nevertheless, although nothing can be more absurd than to 
encumber the youthful mind with a heap of heterogeneous facts, 
without connexion one with the other, without interest to the 
pupil, and without any reference to his peculiar genius or future 
destination ; yet it cannot be doubted that the period set 
apart for education is the one best fitted for storing up in the 
mind materials for thought, as well as those general principles 
and laws of the moral and physical world which are likely to 
be called into requisition in the course of his future life. 

This, indeed, is acknowledged to be the case with reference 
to what concerns man as an individual and as a member of 

* I would not defend the practice of affixing to simple substances names 
founded upon theoretical considerations, but conceive that, in the case of 
compound ones, it was a great gain to science, when Lavoisier substituted for the 
arbitrary designations then in use, words which at least indicated those ingre- 
dients by the union of which the bodies in question were commonly prepared. 
That oil of vitriol is obtained by combining sulphur with oxygen, and Glauber 
salt by bringing together sulphuric acid and soda, are facts sufficient to justify 
the names of sulphuric acid and of sulphate of soda assigned to these bodies ; 
and their truth remains as before, whether we regard them with Lavoisier, 
respectivley S 3 + H 0, and S 3 + Na ; or S 4 + H, and S 4 + Na, 
as the Binary Theory represents them. Nor would the facts be altered, even 
if the latter view of the constitution of salts, which is now in favour, were 
hereafter to be superseded by some other more plausible hypothesis. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 103 

society ; on which accounts the events of history, the laws 
and constitution of our own country, and the principles of the 
philosophy of the human mind, hold a prominent part in every 
system of education. 

But is it not also important, whatever our pupil's destination 
may be, that he should not leave us in entire ignorance of the 
laws and constitution of the objects that surround him— his 
companions from the cradle to the grave — bodies with which 
he will be brought into contact, as agents of good or of evil, at 
every moment of his existence ? 

And if the vast extent of the field thus opened be pleaded as 
a reason for limiting the student's range to particular branches 
of physical inquiry, those sciences which lie at the root of all 
our knowledge of the material world, and without some insight 
into which our acquaintance with individual facts must be 
merely empirical, unquestionably deserve the preference. 

Now, if we classify the different departments of Natural 
Science, as I have done in the Table suspended in the room,* it 
will be manifest that the more fundamental ones, occupying 
the first division in the scheme submitted, will be those which 
comprise a knowledge of — 

1. The general laws common to all matter whatsoever. 

2. The special properties and relations of those bodies, 
which are either most familiar to us, most useful, or most 

* NATURAL SCIENCE INCLUDES, AS PRIMARY, OR FUNDAMENTAL BRANCHES, 
A KNOWLEDGE OF 

f Celestial. 
The properties common to all matter — Physics . . 4 rp . -' i 

The properties distinctive of Bodies in general — Chemistry n ° • 

r c & J | Organic. 

The properties distinctive of living Bodies in particular — f Vegetable. 

Physiology ........ \ Animal. 

AS SPECIAL OR SUBORDINATE BRANCHES, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 

Inorganic bodies viz j Of the Atmosphere . . . Meteorology. 
5 ' ■ | Of the Earth and its contents . Mineralogy 

Lithology. 
Geological Dy- 
namics. 
Palaeontology. 
'Of Vegetables . . . 1 Systematic Botany. 

° t rrfannrrrnnhTT 



Organic bodies, viz. 



1 Organography. 

C* Animals. . . . ff°\ ^- 

(Anatomy. 



104 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

generally diffused throughout nature, so far as they are not 
influenced by vital forces. 

3. The general laws which govern life, both as it exists in the 
animal and in the vegetable kingdom. 

Of these, the first named is termed mechanical philosophy, 
or physics ; the second is included under chemistry ; the third 
under general physiology.* 

With regard to those other departments of natural science 
which often enter, to a certain extent, into a scheme of popular 
education, it may be remarked that in so far as they are parts, 
not of natural history, but of philosophy, they are to be regarded 
simply as expansions of, or as deductions from, one or other of 
the primary ones before cited ; and therefore cannot be 
acquired, except as mere aggregates of undigested facts, until 
a knowledge of some one at least of the above fundamental 
sciences has been attained. 

Thus let us take the case of geology, and suppose our pupil, 
just emancipated from school or college, to find himself at the 
foot of a volcano, and to witness some of the more striking 
manifestations of subterranean energy there exhibited. Sub- 
lime and impressive as the spectacle may be, how entirely will 
he be in the dark, not only as to the cause of the movement, 
but even as to the nature of the phenomena which he witnesses, 
if unaided by chemistry. What will he know of the constitu- 
tion of the substances ejected, of the gases and vapours evolved, 
or of the condition of the surface overspread by these volcanic 
materials, which is sometimes so favourable, at other times so 
unpropitious to vegetation ? 

With how much more abiding an interest will he contemplate 
the phenomena, when he views them in connexion with any 
chemical hypothesis, which, however conjectural, as every 
hypothesis must be which relates to processes going on so far 
beyond the limits of human observation, professes at least to 
account for the particular events that come before him, as well 
as for the order of their sequence. 

Or let him turn his steps to a country where extensive rocks 
are forming, not by igneous forces, but by slow deposition 

* See this explained in a pamphlet of mine, entitled, Brief Remarks on the 
Correlation of the Natural Sciences. Oxford : Vincent, 1848. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 105 

from water, as in the Travertine of Italy, of which the most 
celebrated temples of Rome, as well as those of Psestum, are 
constructed. How much greater interest will he feel in them, 
when, by the lights of chemistry, he traces the action which 
had brought about their deposition, the relation which they 
bear to stratified rocks of older formation, and the probable 
source of the carbonic acid which communicated its solvent 
power to the waters of the district. 

Or suppose him to direct his attention to those branches of 
natural history which relate to living beings, and to concern 
himself, not merely in the external forms of animals or plants, 
but also in their structure and functions. 

Such inquiries will make him acquainted with the law of 
Endosmose, which, as the physiologist will inform him, is seen 
in operation during every process of secretion and excretion 
which takes place in the animal or vegetable kingdom, but 
which the chemist will trace to the still more widely operating 
law of Diffusion, which is seen alike in gases and in liquids, in 
organic and in inorganic bodies, as the late researches of Liebig 
and of Graham have explained to us. 

Or if the occurrence of one of those epidemics, which have of 
late years been so frequent, should call his attention to the 
laws of contagion, even here the most philosophical explanation 
of the spread of the disease may be afforded him by the sugges- 
tions of a chemist, who has traced a very close analogy between 
the propagation of miasmata in the animal organism, and the 
transmission of the fermentative process in fluids susceptible 
of change from one to the other ; referring both to a law 
common alike to living and to dead matter, which renders any 
motion set up in one compound liable to extend itself to others, 
whose particles are in a similar condition of unstable equilibrium. 

It will be seen that I have drawn my examples from subjects 
which at first sight appear to be as far removed as possible 
from the jurisdiction of Chemistry, for it seemed to me needless 
to remind the audience I am addressing that a Science which 
embraces under its consideration all those properties which are 
not either common to all bodies whatsoever, or, on the other 
hand, attributable to the agency of the vital principle, must be 
indispensable to the due understanding — of the processes of the 



106 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

manufactures — of the operations of agriculture — of all the 
changes, in short, in the material world which take place 
through the instrumentality either of art or of nature. 

I need not, therefore, detain you with discussing a truth so 
self-evident ; but will proceed to consider how far the study 
of this science can, without unduly displacing others, be made 
to constitute a part of the education of the different classes of 
society. 

And first, with respect to that of the lower orders — upon 
which, however, I should hardly venture to pronounce, if I 
were not backed by the authority of others, who have made 
this subject their particular study, and especially the Dean of 
Hereford, whose diligence and success in organizing schemes of 
secular education for the people are now fully appreciated. 
There are many subjects upon which a knowledge of a few 
elementary facts in Chemistry will not only supply food for 
the mind, but also convey useful practical hints to the labouring 
population of our towns and villages. 

I may mention, amongst the rest, economy with regard to 
the selection of food, and its preparation for human subsistence 
by the modes of cooking in common use — provisions for the 
better ventilation of cottages, and for their sanitary condition 
generally — instruction with respect to handicraft work and 
various mechanical occupations — information with respect to 
the different qualities of water, and its relative fitness for 
washing and drinking purposes. 

The Dean has pointed out with how very simple and inexpen- 
sive an apparatus the village schoolmaster may demonstrate 
some of the leading truths which illustrate these several heads 
of information, and thus impress them more vividly upon the 
minds of his pupils than could be done by mere oral instruction. 

If from the lowest class of society we pass on to those higher 
in the scale, who are designed for various trades and manufac- 
tures, for the pursuits of agriculture, or for the inferior grades in 
the professions of law and medicine ; we shall see reasons for 
recommending to them the study of chemistry, both as a 
discipline for the mind, and also as the basis of much useful and 
practical knowledge. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 107 

In their case, the necessity of commencing at an early age the 
active business of life precludes the possibility of entering deeply 
into the mathematics, and therefore renders it more important 
that the gap should be supplied by the study of a science which 
may, to a certain extent, supply its place, by training and 
developing the mental faculties. 

The pupil, if agriculture is to be his future calling, will learn 
from chemistry how to economize his manures ; how to bring 
the land in a condition to impart its latent resources to the 
crop ; how to supply what is necessary for the growth of the 
plant he cultivates. 

Without superseding the necessity of experience, or of that 
vigilant survey of his farming operations, which of all requisites 
is the one most essential to success, science will be valuable both 
in suggesting new modes of culture, and in enlightening him as 
to the causes of failure, when the ordinary system of operations 
has chanced to disappoint his expectations. 

We have heard, indeed, of cases where, after the scientific 
man has corrected the practical, the result has proved the latter 
to have been in the right ; but in those instances it has generally 
turned out upon inquiry that the error was to be attributed to 
the imperfection of our knowledge, and that the correction must 
be applied by a more complete scientific investigation of the 
subject. 

Thus, the chemist has often reprobated the practice adopted 
in some of the western counties of adding quicklime to manure- 
heaps, as tending to dissipate the ammonia disengaged before 
it could influence the crop. Lately, however, we have been 
reminded that nitric acid, as well as ammonia, is produced 
during the process of animal putrefaction, and that the former, 
instead of being dissipated, would be only more effectually 
fixed by the application of an alkaline earth to the substances 
containing it. 

The practice, therefore, is not so improper as it had appeared 
from theory to be ; but the practical man should nevertheless 
be reminded that the' aid of chemistry is required to enlighten 
him under what conditions the first or the second of these 
products is elicited,* so that he may learn when lime may be 
added with advantage, and when with loss. 

* See Kuhlman's Papers on the production of Nitre. 



108 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Probably indeed, in the west-country practice alluded to, the 
addition of an absorbing substance to the manure-heap may 
serve to counteract the bad effects of the quicklime, even where 
ammonia is the principal product ; but the farmer, who should 
imitate this practice without understanding the conditions 
upon which its success depends, would be very likely to 
omit these accessories, and thus to bring about an opposite 
result. 

With regard to the applications of Chemistry to the useful 
arts, the instances of it are so numerous and so familiar to all 
that it seems needless to insist upon the advantages of its study 
to all who are destined for such employments ; and it is equally 
clear that, for those who intend to make the healing art, in 
any of its branches, their future profession, a more than super- 
ficial knowledge of it is all but indispensable. 

I proceed, then, to consider how far Chemistry deserves a 
place in that more complete system of education which is 
designed for the learned professions, as well as for the higher 
Orders of Society in general. My recommending it as a fit 
study for the middling and the lower classes would alone 
render it imperative upon me to impose it upon the upper — for 
under the circumstances of the present age, and in this country 
more especially, the maintenance of a superior position, and of 
superior moral influence, involves the necessity of superior 
mental culture. 

The idea of imparting a special direction to the primary 
education of youth, in accordance with their respective rank or 
future destination, is not only in itself unphilosophical, but also 
in manifest contradiction * to the principle which has always 
guided us in our schools and colleges — namely, that of exacting 
from all for whom a liberal education is designed the same 
basis of classical and mathematical learning. And the adoption 
of an opposite principle, by the exclusion from the curriculum 
of any study which is admitted as an integral part of the 
training given to the people at large, must tend to the isolation 
of the class to which it is applied, and consequently weaken its 
connexion with those below it. 

* See Davison's Remarks on this subject, and Father Newman's Discourses 
on University Education, p. 241 et seq. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 109 

In a Protestant community, for example, the legitimate 
influence of the priest over the laiety can only be duly main- 
tained by the ascendancy of his character, and by the extent 
of his information with respect to subjects on which the people 
with whom he mixes are able to estimate his superiority. 

By enlightening them on common matters, in which a little 
knowledge of Chemistry will afford them such material assis- 
tance, and thereby becoming the instrument of enabling them 
to better their own condition, and to economize their means of 
living, he paves his way to their confidence on subjects more 
strictly appertaining to his sacred profession. 
■ There seems to me also to be a peculiar propriety in thus 
intercalating a somewhat fluctuating, though advancing science, 
like Chemistry, in a course of education, the principal elements 
of which, such as the mathematics or the literature of past ages, 
are little susceptible of change. 

A study of this description familiarizes the pupil with the 
idea of progress ; it exercises a distinct set of faculties, just as 
a new gymnastic exercise calls into play a new set of muscles ; 
and it guards against that stagnation which is apt to supervene, 
when the mind is chiefly made the passive recipient of truths 
which rest upon authority. 

To those, indeed, who regard a knowledge of what other men 
have said and done, the sole aim of education, the example of 
the Chinese may serve as an instructive warning. 

We here see a nation which has retrograded in the scale of 
civilization, in consequence of having reposed entirely upon the 
wisdom of its ancestors ; of following implicitly those principles 
in the arts which had been handed down to it from an early 
period ; and of occupying its learned leisure chiefly in pondering 
over the intricacies of a language which it would seem to require 
the labour of a life fully to master. 

It must indeed be confessed, in justice to this people, that 
they had a better excuse for their tenacity in adhering to their 
ancient paths than other nations would be able to plead. Long 
before Europe had emerged from barbarism, China was in 
possession of the art of printing, of gunpowder, and of the 
nariner's compass — her population was clad in silks, a royal 
uxury even in the days of Queen Elizabeth — had perfected the 



110 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

manufacture of porcelain — and had brought agriculture and 
many of the industrial arts to a high pitch of perfection. Her 
vast empire enjoyed a patriarchal government ; an aristocracy 
founded only upon the enlightened principle of intellectual 
superiority, tested by public competition ; a complete system 
of internal communication by roads and canals ; and a code of 
laws which, viewed even by the lights of the present day, is 
considered by good judges to savour throughout of practical 
sagacity and European good sense. 

Is it to be wondered at that surrounded as she was with 
hordes of mere savages, and receiving no favourable report, if 
any, of nations more distant, China should have overestimated 
both her material and her intellectual superiority, and should 
have imagined that in her palmy condition change was the only 
danger against which she had to guard ? 

And yet, after ten centuries of stagnation, what is the 
spectacle this nation presents to us ? a population at once 
effeminate and degraded, inferior to ourselves even in those 
industrial arts, on which they chiefly plume themselves, and 
incapable of adopting to any extent the inventions of other 
nations — a monied class sordid and sensual — and a body of 
Literati indifferent to all abstract science, and curious only on 
points of information which promise some palpable and 
immediate end of utility. 

It is of course foreign from my intention to compare the 
philosophy of Confucius with that of Aristotle, or the literary 
productions of a Mongolian nation with those which emanated 
from the highest type of intellect which the human race probably 
has ever developed ; but the evil consequences I have pointed 
out seem to me to have arisen, not so much from the inferior 
character of the models held out for them to copy, as from their 
servile adherence to them. 

" Truth," says Milton, " is compared in Scripture to a 
streaming fountain ; if her waters flow not in a perpetual pro- 
gression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and 
tradition ; " and all experience will serve to show that wherever 
due provision has not been made for advancement the seeds oi 
decay are sure to find admittance. 

Hence, if on the one hand it be useful to impress upon the 
mind a reverence for the great lights that have illumined the 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 111 

walks of learning in former periods of the world ; it is not less 
desirable on the other that some of the studies pursued in early 
youth should have a tendency to encourage an independent 
search after Truth, and to induce the habit of interrogating 
nature as well as of leaning upon the traditions of men. 

With these sentiments it may be supposed that I am not 
prepared to defend the system pursued in my own university 
till within the last two years, which consisted in merely securing 
the delivery of lectures on Chemistry for the sake of those who 
might desire, of their own accord, to improve themselves in 
that science, without holding out any encouragement to its 
prosecution, or treating the subject as though it were considered 
in any sense an integral part of our scheme of education. 

In these respects, however, Chemistry was at least in no 
worse position than other branches of physical science, or even 
than the history and philosophy of modern times, no one of 
which studies was insisted upon, or even promoted amongst us 
by academical distinctions or emoluments. 

The defenders of this exclusive system might, indeed, appeal 
to the long train of distinguished men whom the university had 
sent forth, as a practical proof of its efficacy in refining and 
expanding the mental powers ; and I am far from disputing 
the position that, supposing the attention of youth required to 
be limited to one description of literature, the great writers of 
antiquity deserve in many respects a preference over those of 
later times. There is a simple grandeur, an absence of all 
affectation and straining after effect, a native vigour and fresh- 
ness about the early Greek writers in particular, which seem 
better calculated to win the sympathies of youth, and to induce 
habits of just thinking and correct taste, than the more elaborate 
and recondite productions of men of modern days. 

The faults, as well as the beauties of these authors, are those 
of precocious youth ; and if we were to suppose a Being of a 
superior order to man to appear upon our globe, although his 
matured intellect might strike out deeper truths, and teem with 
loftier imaginations, his earlier thoughts might be imagined to 
find their most appropriate expression in the language of Homer 
or of Herodotus. 
Nevertheless, the advocates of a purely classical education 



112 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

appear to have overlooked certain considerations which are not 
without weight in arriving at a right conclusion on such a 
subject. 

In the first place, as I have already remarked, it is desirable 
to train and develop the faculty of minutely observing, of 
clearly apprehending, and of correctly classifying the objects 
that present themselves ; talents which can be best fostered at 
an early period of life, and can in no way be more fully unfolded 
than by a course of chemical study. 

Secondly, the many urgent motives, of one kind or another, 
which force the student to plunge into active life immediately 
upon escaping from the trammels of the school or university, 
will often prevent his possessing any sound knowledge of 
physical science, if it be not made a part of his early educa- 
tion. 

Lastly, a very large proportion of mankind want the ability 
to obtain that proficiency in any of the branches of learning 
cultivated at our universities which is requisite to enable them 
to reap from their study the advantages anticipated. 

In an Institution intended to educate the youths of the 
country generally, however high the qualification for distinction 
may be raised, a low standard of attainments can alone be 
insisted upon ; and yet it is notorious that a large proportion 
of the youths who resort to a university, although they are 
capable of reaching the prescribed point with little mental 
exertion, never aspire to go beyond it. - 

Nor is this indifference on their part to be ascribed, primarily 
at least, to indolence of disposition, or to deficiency in ordinary 
intelligence ; for these very persons in after life will often 
evince much power of application, and soundness of judgment, 
in the capacity of magistrates, of parochial clergymen, or even 
of members of the legislature. Their previous intellectual 
torpor, so far as all academical studies were concerned, arose, 
I am convinced, in a great degree, from their incapacity to 
grapple with the deeper philosophy of the ancient world, 
or to imbibe any keen relish for its orators, its poets, or its 
historians. 

If to this inaptitude for literary pursuits be conjoined an 
equal disinclination for abstract studies or for the higher 
branches of the mathematics, one can readily understand that 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 113 

such youths should make but little progress beyond the point 
to which they had already advanced at school, and that the 
time spent at the university should have been chiefly wasted in 
field sports, or even more frivolous occupations. 

Now it is for men of this character of mind that the study of 
the experimental sciences is particularly valuable, because the 
very practical tendency of their minds, which, to a certain 
extent, prevents them from profiting so largely from the 
favourite studies of a university, is the very quality most likely 
to befit them for the observation of external nature, and is, 
moreover, most commonly accompanied with that tact and 
.sagacity which are most serviceable in its interpretation. 

Thus the recognition of Chemistry in a university like the one 
to which I belong is little likely to detract unduly from the 
attention paid to the classical studies of the place ; whilst its 
pursuit is only so much clear gain to the general stock of 
knowledge, as it would be chiefly confined either to youths who 
are not likely to apply themselves with any vigour and success 
to literary subjects ; to those" who have a peculiar genius and 
aptitude for physical investigations ; or, lastly, to the few who 
have energy and capacity enough to embrace both literature 
and science within the circle of their studies. 

It was not, therefore, without good reason that the University 
of Oxford, in the year 1849, determined that henceforward the 
physical sciences should be made the subjects of examination, 
and be held out to its students as reckoning amongst the 
qualifications, not only for a simple degree, but also for certain 
academical distinctions. 

But something more than this will be required, if we would 
secure to these branches of study their proper place in such a 
body as our own. In order to afford effectual encouragement 
to any department of learning, substantial rewards are necessary, 
and fortunately the liberality of our Founders and benefactors 
has supplied us with means ample enough, if judiciously applied, 
to spread their fertilizing influence over every field of intel- 
lectual culture, instead of being limited, as at present, to a 
few. 

At any rate, as I have observed in another place,* no one can 

* See a Pamphlet entitled. Can Physical Science find a Home in an English 
University? Oxford : Vincent, 1854. 



114 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

have a right to pronounce the atmosphere of Oxford uncon- 
genial to the investigation of physical truth, until it has been 
ascertained what would be the result, supposing a certain 
proportion of our Fellowships were awarded as prizes for 
scientific acquirements ; and supposing, as would be the natural 
consequence, that the student who distinguished himself in this 
line were placed, in the estimation of his contemporaries, on the 
same level as if he had bestowed a similar amount of mental 
exertion upon pursuits of a literary character. 

If this rule were adopted, there seems to me no reason why 
Oxford should not rank as high in physical science as she has 
long done in other departments of human knowledge ; for I, 
for one, cannot understand why the contemplation and study 
of nature should not be carried on at least as well within the 
retirement of a university as amidst the noise and bustle of a 
crowded metropolis. 

It would rather seem that for the prosecution of experiments 
requiring often considerable abstraction of mind, as well as 
long-continued exertion ; and promising no immediate result, 
beyond the pleasure of arriving at a new truth, the pecuniary 
resources of our collegiate establishments, and the exemption 
they afford from the cares and distractions of ordinary life, 
supply the most ample facilities ; and that whilst the prospect 
of attaining a Fellowship might attract students into this path 
of research, the possession of one would afterwards enable them 
to dedicate their lives to its prosecution. 

And this application of our academical funds is, I contend, 
entirely in harmony with an enlightened view of the objects for 
which they were designed ; for although the older universities 
of the realm were, doubtless, primarily intended, as those of 
later creation are, for the purposes of education, they, from the 
very first, aimed at something beyond it. 

The entire tendency of the collegiate system — the foundation 
of fellowships— their tenure extending far beyond the period to 
which the education of their holders could be supposed to be 
prolonged, and in most cases, indeed, without any limitation 
as to the period of their retention — are circumstances all of 
which imply that the views of our Founders contemplated the 
creation of a permanent body of men devoted to the prosecution 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 115 

of literary and scientific objects, under the presiding influence 
of religion.* There is, indeed, no other possible explanation of 
their motives, unless we were to adopt the monastic view of 
these Institutions, which the perverse ingenuity of a few persons 
of late years has ventured to uphold ; but which was disavowed 
by their own Members at the time of the Reformation, as a plea 
of exemption from the common fate which then awaited the 
Religious Houses ; and which seems to have been repudiated 
by the earliest and most catholic-minded of our Founders, in 

* Although the Bill now before Parliament for furthering the good government 
of the University and of the Colleges has in general my hearty concurrence, 
there are, nevertheless, two provisions in it which I cannot but consider as 
detrimental to the interests of Oxford, whether regarded in the light of a 
focus of literature, or as a nursery of education. 

I allude to the clause fixing a limit to the tenure of Fellowships, and to that 
rendering residence, except in a few particular cases, compulsory upon those who 
enjoy them. 

The former of these appears to be calculated to check the growth of a class of 
men, at present perhaps not very numerous, but which it is highly important 
to foster — those I mean who devote themselves to literary and scientific occupa- 
tions without any ulterior object in life : nor can it fail to damp the exertions 
even of others who come to us for education, since it will deprive the academical 
emoluments, which are held out to them as the rewards of success, of a con- 
siderable portion of their value. 

It ought not to be overlooked that a Fellowship is coveted less on account 
of its pecuniary amount than for the security it affords that its possessor may 
hold it for any length of time, if his necessities or ill success in life should 
render it of importance for him to retain it. 

It thus serves as a guarantee to the disinterested and unambitious student 
that he will be free to prosecute his favourite pursuits so long as he pleases, in 
comparative indifference as to their bearing upon the practical concerns of 
life, or on his own future advancement in it. And with respect to the abuses 
complained of at present in the tenure of Fellowships, I have sufficient faith 
in the working of the Bill to conceive that when Colleges have the power of 
selecting candidates from the whole University, the cases will be few where a 
FeUow shall linger on, as a burden to his Society, beyond the period which the 
interests of learning would justify ; and if this were to happen now and then, 
the evil would be small compared to that of spreading abroad the feeling that 
inasmuch as the provision made for study is henceforward to cease at the period 
of life when it may be most wanted, the application of any portion of the means 
supplied to obtain other than personal objects would be an act of imprudence. 

On the other hand, the clause compelling residence strikes me as either un- 
necessary or injurious ; unnecessary when the Fellowships are properly be- 
stowed, and of an injurious tendency when they are not. 

Supposing, for instance, the successful candidate to possess literary tastes 
and attainments, why seek to compel him to do that to which his own inclina- 
tions would naturally prompt him and from which he would only be drawn 
aside when, as in the case of a lawyer or physician, his studies could be more 
advantageously prosecuted elsewhere ? 

On the other hand, supposing the Fellowship to be filled up without due 
reference to the claims of merit, the enforcement of residence would have the 



116 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

the distinct prohibition which their statutes contain against 
any member of a conventual establishment holding a position 
within our colleges. 

I should apologize, Gentlemen, for detaining you so long on 
these topics if I did not feel that the English universities not 
only are, but will be recognized by you all as national establish- 
ments — national, not only because there is perhaps no one in 
an assembly like the present whose nearest relatives may not 
at some time or other be assisted in their education by the 
scholarships, or rewarded for their exertions by the Fellowships, 
of which we have the disposal ; but also because the existence 
of a high standard of education anywhere within our common 
country is a national benefit even to those who do not directly 
partake of it. 

It would seem a happy circumstance that in a country of 
great proprietors like our own, some portion of the land should 
have been removed from the grasp of individuals, by being held, 
as it were, in mortmain for the benefit of the community at 

effect of fixing at the University men of uncongenial habits, whose presence 
must be equally detrimental to themselves and to others. 

It would indeed be a singular act of inconsistency in the members of the 
Legislature if, when they felt themselves authorized by considerations of public 
utility to overrule the injunctions of Founders with respect to matters in which 
the most earnest reformers within our walls have felt themselves precluded, from 
conscientious motives, from proposing changes ; they should at the same time 
compel us to return to our statutes on a point wherein the altered condition of 
Society reconciles the most scrupulous of our members to that departure from 
their strict letter which has long taken place. 

The enforcement of residence upon Fellows, beyond the amount necessary 
for the purposes of instruction, and of carrying on the concerns of the College, 
could only have reference, in the minds of Founders, either to the advancement 
of learning or to the observance of monastic discipline. 

So far as the former was their object, it would at present be sufficiently 
consulted by the many inducements to residence which the University holds 
out to the real student ; if the latter made any part of their intentions, Parlia- 
ment, in the nineteenth century, can hardly desire to go out of its way to further 
them, by inculcating, or rendering more inveterate, those conventual habits 
and feelings which cause religious observances to be regarded, not as the proper 
preparation for the duties of life, but as its sole business ; this latter being the 
only assignable ground for enforcing residence in Colleges on persons not fitted 
or disposed to avail themselves to any extent of the means and appliances for 
literary occupation which Oxford so abundantly affords. 

P.S. June 10th. The above clauses are, I am happy to see, excluded from the 
Bill " as amended in Committee and on recommitment," but provisions of a 
similar tendency seem still to be left within the powers with which the Com- 
missioners are to be invested. 



THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 



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LECTURES ON EDUCATION 



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THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY 119 

large ; and not less so that amongst a nation so absorbed in 
the pursuit of wealth, and holding out to all classes such strong 
temptations to plunge into active life at as early a period as 
possible, establishments should exist, by the aid of which the 
educated classes may be induced to linger a little over those 
studies which exert a generous and ennobling influence upon 
the character of a people, and tend to counteract the too 
practical and utilitarian tendencies of the age in which we live. 

The genius of Oxford, indeed, has, I believe, on many occa- 
sions operated beneficially upon the general surface of English 
society. May we not also hope that, in return, those without 
her walls may react with advantage upon the university itself, 
by putting forth so strong an expression of public opinion as 
may induce our Members to hold for the future in equal esteem, 
and to foster with an equal degree of encouragement each one 
of the liberal branches of intellectual culture. 

Should such hereafter be the case, and should the application 
of a portion of our endowments to the advancement of physical 
science be admitted as a natural consequence of such a view, 
great indeed would be the stimulus thus afforded to this class of 
pursuits, and great the advancement in the sciences which 
might be expected to accrue. 

The English universities might then again become, as they 
were of old, the principal seats of physical research, as well as 
the main repositories of existing knowledge in the country ; 
and as at the present time the amateurs of science at Oxford 
wend their way to the Royal Institution to obtain the first 
announcement of the researches of a Faraday, so it may 
happen that at some future day the inhabitants of the metro- 
polis may be induced to crowd to our University in order to 
become acquainted with the discoveries worked out by some 
new Roger Bacon, within the cloisters of his Academic Home. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 

AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION FOR 

ALL CLASSES 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

By PROFESSOR TYNDALL, F.R.S. 

There is a word in the title of this Lecture which does not clearly 
convey the idea by which I shall be guided in its delivery. I 
hold in my hand a soiled proof of the syllabus of the present 
course, and the title of the present lecture is there stated to be 
" On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Means of 
Education." The corrected proof, however, contains the following 
title : " On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Branch 
of Education." Small as the alteration may seem from means to 
branch, the two words appear to me to suggest two radically 
distinct modes of viewing the subject before us. The term 
Education is sometimes applied to a single faculty or organ, 
and if we know wherein the education of a single organ or 
faculty consists, this knowledge will enable us to form a clearer 
notion regarding the education of the sum of all the faculties, 
or of the mind. When, for example, we speak of the education 
of the voice, what do we mean ? There are certain membranes 
at the top of the windpipe which are capable of being thrown 
into vibration by the air forced between them from the lungs, 
and thus caused to produce sound. These membranes are, to 
some extent, under the control of the will : it is found that they 
can be so modified by exercise as to produce notes of a clearer 
and more melodious character, and this exercise we call the 
education of the voice. We may choose for our exercise a new 
song or an old song, a festive song or a solemn chant ; and, the 
education of the voice being the .object we have in view, the 

120 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 121 

songs may be regarded as the means by which this education 
is accomplished. I think this expresses the state of the case 
more clearly than if we were to call the songs a branch of educa- 
tion. Regarding also the education of the human mind as the 
improvement and development of the mental faculties, I consider 
the study of Physics to be a means towards the attainment of 
these objects. Of course, from this point of view, I degrade 
Physics into an implement of culture, and I mean to do so, to a 
great extent ; for the general expansion of the intellectual 
powers implies both the acquisition of specific knowledge and 
the ability to render it productive. There is this great difference 
between those who pursue a thing as a branch and those who 
use it as a means : in the latter case the knowledge imparted 
is truly power ; whereas, in the former case, it may be the 
reverse. Viewing, then, the development of the mental 
faculties as the end of mental education, it will be my endeavour 
to state to you some of the claims of Physical Science as a means 
towards the attainment of this end. 

I do not think that it is the mission of this age, or of any other 
particular age, to lay down a system of education which shall 
hold good for all ages. The basis of human nature is, perhaps, 
permanent, but not so the forms under which the spirit of 
humanity manifests itself. It is sometimes peaceful, sometimes 
warlike, sometimes religious, sometimes sceptical, and history 
is simply the record of its mutations. 

" The eternal Pan 
Who layeth the world's incessant plan 
Halteth never in one shape, 
But for ever doth escape 
Into new forms." 

This appears to be the law of things throughout the universe, and 
it is therefore no proof of fickleness or destructiveness, properly 
so called, if the implements of human culture change with the 
times, and the requirements of the present age be found different 
from those of the preceding. Unless you can say to me that 
the past world, or some portion of it, has been the final expres- 
sion of human competency ; that the wisdom of man has 
already reached its climax ; that the intellect of to-day possesses 
feebler powers, or a narrower scope than the intellect of earlier 
times ; you cannot, with reason, demand from me an uncon- 
ditional acceptance of the systems of the past, nor are you 



122 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

justified in divorcing me from the world and times "in which I 
live, and confining my conversation to the times gone by. Who 
can blame me if I cherish the belief that the world is still young ; 
that there are great possibilities in store for it ; that the English- 
man of to-day is made of as good stuff, and has as high and 
independent a vocation to fulfil, as had the ancient Greek or 
Roman. While thankfully accepting what antiquity has to 
offer, let us never forget that the present century has just as 
good a right to its own forms of thought and methods of culture 
as any former centuries had to theirs, and that the same sources 
of power are open to us to-day as were ever open to man in 
any age of the world. 

In the earliest religious writings, we find man described as a 
mixture of the earthly and the divine. The existence of the 
latter implies, in his case, that of the former : and hence the 
holiest and most self-denying saint must, to a certain extent, 
protect himself against hunger and cold. But every attempt to 
restrict man to the dominion of the senses has failed, and will 
continue to fail. He is the repository of forces which push him 
beyond the world of sense. He has an intellect as well as a 
palate, and the demands of the latter being satisfied, the former 
inevitably puts in its claim. We cannot quench these desires 
of the intellect. They are stimulated by the phenomena which 
surround us in our present state of existence as the body is by 
oxygen ; and in the presence of these phenomena man thirsts 
for knowledge as an Arab longs for water when he smells the 
Nile. The Chaldean shepherds could not rest contented with 
their bread and milk, but made the discovery that man had other 
wants to satisfy. The stars shed their light upon the shepherd 
and his flock, but in both cases with very different results. 
The quadruped cropped the green herbage and slept contented ; 
but that power which had already made man the lord of the 
quadruped was appealed to night after night, and thus the 
intellectual germ which lay in the nature of these Chaldeans 
was stimulated and developed. Surely, if man be not made, 
and stars scattered, by guess-work, there is strong reason for 
assuming that it was intended that mental power should be 
developed m this way. As the nurse holds her glittering toy 
before the infant that she would encourage to take its first step, 
so it would appear as if one of the ends of the Creator, in setting 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 123 

those shining things in heaven, was to woo the attention and 
excite the intellectual activity of his earthborn child. But if 
this be granted, then it must be admitted that we have the very 
highest sanction for the prosecution of physical research. 
Sanction, indeed, is a term too weak to express the inference 
suggested by a comparison of Man's powers with his position 
upon earth ; it points to an imperative command to search and 
to examine, rather than to a mere toleration of physical inquiry. 
The term Physics, as made use of in the present Lecture, 
refers to that portion of natural science which lies midway 
between astronomy and chemistry. The former, indeed, is 
Physics applied to masses of enormous weight, while the latter 
is Physics applied to atoms and molecules. The subjects of 
Physics proper are, therefore, those which lie nearest to human 
perception — the light and heat of the sun, colour, sound, motion, 
the loadstone, electrical attractions and repulsions, thunder and 
lightning, rain, snow, dew, and so forth. The senses of Man 
stand between these phenomena, between the external world 
and the world of thought. He observes the fact, but is not 
satisfied with the mere act of observation : he must render an 
account of the fact : he takes his images from Nature and trans- 
fers them to the domain of thought : he looks at them, compares 
them, observes their mutual relations and connexions, and thus 
brings them clearer and clearer before his mental eye, until, 
finally, he alights upon the cause which unites them. This is the 
last act of the mind, in this centripetal direction, in its progress 
from the multiplicity of facts to the central cause on which they 
depend. But, having guessed the cause, he is not yet contented : 
he now sets out from his centre and travels in the other direction : 
he sees that if his guess be true, certain consequences must 
follow from it, and he appeals to the law and testimony of 
experiment whether the thing is so. Thus he completes the 
circuit of thought — from without inward, from multiplicity to 
unity, and from within outward, from unity to multiplicity. 
He traverses the line between cause and effect both ways, and, 
in so doing, calls all his reasoning powers into play. For the 
mental effort involved in these processes may be justly com- 
pared to those exercises of the body which invoke the co- 
operation of every muscle, and thus confer upon the whole 
frame the benefits of healthy action. 



124 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

The first experiment a man makes is a physical experiment : 
he is a natural philosopher by instinct, and the suction-pump 
is but an imitation of the first act of every new-born infant. 
Nor do I think it calculated to lessen that infant's reverence, or 
to make him a worse citizen, when his riper experience shows 
him that the atmosphere was his helper in extracting the first 
draught from his mother's breast. The child grows, but is still 
an experimenter : he grasps at the moon, and his failure teaches 
him to respect distance. At length his little fingers acquire 
sufficient mechanical tact to lay hold of a spoon. He thrusts 
the instrument into his mouth ; hurts his little gums, and thus 
learns the impenetrability of matter. He lets the spoon fall, 
and jumps with delight to hear it rattle against the table. The 
experiment made by accident is repeated with intention, and 
thus the young Newton receives his first lessons upon sound and 
gravitation. There are pains and penalties, however, in the 
path of the young inquirer : he is sure to go wrong, and Nature 
is just as sure to inform him of the fact. He falls downstairs, 
burns his fingers, cuts his hand, scalds his tongue, and in this 
way learns the conditions of his physical well-being. This is 
Nature's way of proceeding, and it is wonderful what progress 
her pupil makes. His enjoyments for a time are physical, and 
the confectioner's shop occupies the foreground of human happi- 
ness ; but the blossoms of a finer life are already beginning to 
unfold themselves, and the relation of cause and effect dawns 
upon the boy. He begins to see that the present condition of 
things is not final, but depends upon one that has gone before, 
and will be succeeded by another. He becomes a puzzle to 
himself ; and to satisfy his newly awakened curiosity, asks all 
manner of inconvenient questions. The needs and tendencies of 
human nature express themselves through these early yearnings 
of the child. He desires to know the character and causes of the 
phenomena presented to him ; and unless this desire has been 
granted for the express purpose of having it repressed, unless the 
attractions of natural phenomena be like the blush of the for- 
bidden fruit, conferred merely for the purpose of exercising our 
self-denial by letting them alone ; then I claim for the study of 
Physics the recognition that it answers to an impulse implanted 
by nature in the human constitution, and he who would oppose 
such study must be prepared to exhibit the credentials which 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 125 

authorize him to contravene Nature's manifest designs. Such 
credentials were never given ; and the opposition, where it 
exists, is in most, if not in all cases, due to the fact that at the 
time when the opponent of Science was beginning to inquire 
like the little boy, it was so arranged by human institutions that 
the train of thought suggested by natural objects should, in his 
case, be supplanted by another. But is this unavoidable ? Is, 
for example, the knowledge of grammatical concord and govern- 
ment so utterly antagonistic to the scientific discernment of the 
same two principles in Nature, as to render the complete ex- 
trusion of the one necessary to the existence of the other ? A 
few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and 
therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that 
until he had reached the age of twenty years he had never been 
taught anything regarding Light, Heat, Magnetism, or Elec- 
tricity : twelve years of his life previously had been spent among 
the ancients, all connexion being thus severed between him and 
natural phenomena. Now, we cannot, without prejudice to 
humanity, separate the present from the past. The nineteenth 
century strikes its roots into the centuries gone by, and draws 
nutriment from them. The world cannot afford to lose the 
record of any great deed or utterance ; for such deeds and such 
utterances are prolific throughout all time. We cannot yield 
the companionship of our loftier brothers of antiquity — of our 
Socrates and Cato — whose lives provoke us to sympathetic 
greatness across the interval of two thousand years. As long 
as the ancient languages are the means of access to the ancient 
mind, they must ever be of priceless value to humanity ; but it 
is as the avenues of ancient thought, and not as the instrument 
of modern culture, that they are chiefly valuable to Man. 
Surely these avenues might be kept open without making such 
sacrifices as that above referred to universal. We have con- 
quered and possessed ourselves of continents of land, concerning 
which antiquity knew nothing ; and if new continents of 
thought reveal themselves to the exploring human spirit, shall 
we not possess them also ? In these latter days, the study of 
Physics has given us glimpses of the methods of Nature which 
were quite hidden from the ancients, and it would be treason to 
the trust committed to us if we were to sacrifice the hopes and 
aspirations of the Present out of deference to the Past. 



126 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

I dare say the bias of my own education manifests itself in a 
desire I always feel to seize upon every possible opportunity of 
checking my assumptions and conclusions by experience. I 
might, it is true, appeal directly to your own consciousness in 
proof of the tendency of the human mind to inquire into the 
phenomena presented to the senses ; but I trust you will excuse 
me if, instead of doing this, I take advantage of the facts which 
have fallen in my own way through life, referring to your 
judgment to decide whether such facts are truly representative 
and general, and not merely individual and local. At an 
agricultural college in Hampshire, with which I was connected 
for some time, and which is now converted into a school for the 
general education of youth, a Society was formed among the 
boys, which met weekly for the purpose of reading reports and 
papers upon various subjects. The Society had its president 
and treasurer ; and abstracts of its proceedings were published 
in a little monthly periodical issuing from the school press. One 
of the most remarkable features of these weekly meetings was 
that after the general business had been concluded each member 
of the Society enjoyed the right of asking questions on any sub- 
ject on which he desired information. The questions were either 
written out previously in a book devoted to the purpose, or, 
if a question happened to suggest itself during the meeting, it was 
written upon a slip of paper and handed in to the secretary, who 
afterwards read all the questions aloud. A number of teachers 
were usually present, and they and the boys made a common 
stock of their wisdom in furnishing replies. As might be ex- 
pected from an assemblage of eighty or ninety boys, varying 
from eighteen to eight years old, many extraordinary questions 
were proposed. To the eye which loves to detect in the ten- 
dencies of the young the instincts of humanity generally, such 
questions are not without a certain philosophic interest, and I 
have therefore thought it not derogatory to the present course of 
Lectures to copy a few of these questions, and to introduce them 
here. They run as follows : 

What are the duties of the Astronomer Royal ? 
What is frost ? 

Why are thunder and lightning more frequent in summer than 
in winter ? 

What occasions falling stars ? 






THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 127 

What is the cause of the sensation called " pins and needles " ? 

What is the cause of waterspouts ? 

What is the cause of hiccup ? 

If a towel be wetted with water, why does the wet portion 
becomes darker than before ? 

What is meant by Lancashire witches ? 

Does the dew rise or fall ? 

What is the principle of the hydraulic press ? 

Is there more oxygen in the air in summer than in winter ? 

What are those rings which we see round the gas and sun ? 

What is thunder ? 
• How is it that a black hat can be moved by forming round it a 
magnetic circle, while a white hat remains stationary ? 

What is the cause of perspiration ? 

Is it true that men were once monkeys ? 

What is the difference between the soul and the mind ? 

Is it contrary to the rules of Vegetarianism to eat eggs ? 

In looking over these questions, which were wholly un- 
prompted, and have been copied almost at random from the 
book already alluded to, we see that many of them are suggested 
directly by natural objects, and are not such merely as had an 
interest conferred on them by previous culture. Now the fact is 
beyond the boy's control, and so certainly is the desire to know 
its cause. The sole question then is, is this desire to be gratified 
or not ? Who created the fact ? Who implanted the desire ? 
Certainly not Man — and will any man undertake to place him- 
self between the mind and the fact, and proclaim a divorce 
between them ? Take, for example, the case of the wetted 
towel, which at first sight appears to be one of the most un- 
promising questions in the list. Shall we tell the proposer to 
repress his curiosity, as the subject is improper for him to know, 
and thus interpose our wisdom to rescue the boy from the con- 
sequences of Nature's atrocity in implanting a desire which 
acts to his prejudice ? Or, recognizing the propriety of the 
question, how shall we answer it ? It is impo sible to answer 
it without reference to the laws of optics — impossible to answer 
it without making the boy to some extent a natural philosopher. 
You may say that the effect is due to the reflection of light at the 
common surface of two media of different refractive indices. 
But this answer presupposes on the part of the boy a knowledge 



128 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

of what reflection and refraction are, or reduces you to the 
necessity of explaining them. On looking more closely into the 
matter, we find that our wet towel belongs to a class of phen- 
nomena exhibited by tabasheer and hydrophane, which have 
long excited the interest of philosophers. These bodies are 
opaque when dry, but when dipped into water or beech-nut oil 
they become transparent. The towel is white for the same 
reason that snow is white, that foam is white, that pounded 
granite or glass is white, and that the salt we use at table is white. 
On quitting one medium and entering another, a portion of light 
is always reflected, but with this restriction, the media must 
possess different refractive indices. Thus, when we immerse 
glass in water, light is reflected from the common surface of both, 
and it is this light which enables us to see the glass. But take a 
transparent solid and immerse it in a liquid of the same refractive 
index as itself, it will immediately disappear. I remember once 
dropping the eyeball of an ox into water ; it vanished as if by 
magic, with the exception of the crystalline lens, and the sur- 
prise was so great as to cause a bystander to suppose that the 
mass had been instantly dissolved. This, however, was not the 
case, and a comparison of the refractive index of the vitreous 
humour with that of water cleared up the whole matter. The 
indices were identical, and hence the light pursued its way 
through both bodies as if they formed one continuous mass. In 
the case of snow, powdered quartz, or salt, we have a trans- 
parent solid body mixed with air ; at every transition from solid 
to air, or from air to solid, a portion of light is reflected ; this 
takes place so often that the light is wholly intercepted, and thus 
from the mixture of two transparent bodies we obtain an 
opaque one. Now the case of the towel is precisely similar. The 
tissue is composed of semi-transparent vegetable fibres, with the 
interstices between them filled with air ; repeated reflection 
takes place at the limiting surfaces of air and fibre, and hence 
the towel becomes opaque like snow or salt. But if we fill the 
interstices of the towel with water, we diminish the reflection ; 
a portion of the light enters the mass, and the darkness of the 
towel is due to its increased transparency. Thus the hydro- 
phane, tabasheer, the tracing paper used by engineers, and many 
other considerations of the highest scientific interest are in- 
volved in the simple inquiry of this unsuspecting little boy. 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 129 

Again, take the question regarding the rising or falling of the 
dew — a question long agitated, and finally set at rest by the 
beautiful researches of Wells and Melloni. I do not. think that 
any boy of average intelligence will be satisfied with the simple 
answer that the dew falls. He will wish to learn how you know 
that it falls, and, if acquainted with the notions of the Middle 
Ages, may refer to the opinion of Father Laurus, that, if you 
fill a goose egg with the morning dew and expose it to the sun, 
it will rise like a balloon — a swan's egg being better for the 
experiment than a goose egg. It is impossible to give the boy 
a clear notion of the beautiful phenomenon to which his question 
refers, without first making him acquainted with the radiation 
and conduction of heat. Take, for example, a blade of grass, 
from which one of these orient pearls is depending. During the 
day the grass, and the earth beneath it, possess a certain 
amount of warmth imparted by the sun ; during a serene night, 
heat is radiated from the surface of the grass into space, and to 
supply the loss there is a flow of heat from the interior portions 
of the blade towards its surface. Thus the surface loses heat 
by radiation, and gains heat by conduction. Now, in the case 
before us, the power of radiation is great, whereas the power 
of conduction is small ; the consequence is that the blade loses 
more than it gains, and hence becomes more and more refrige- 
rated. The light vapour floating around the surface so cooled 
is precipitated upon it, and there accumulates to form the little 
pearly globe which we call a dewdrop. 

Thus the boy finds the simple and homely fact which 
addressed his senses to be the outcome and flower of the deepest 
laws. The fact becomes, in a measure, sanctified as an object 
of thought, and invested for him with a beauty for evermore. 
He thus learns that things which, at first sight, seem to stand 
isolated and without apparent brotherhood in Nature are united 
by their causes, and finds the detection of these analogies a 
source of perpetual delight. To enlist pleasure on the side of 
intellectual performance is a point of the utmost importance ; 
for the exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for 
its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished. Every 
physician knows that something more than mere mechanical 
motion is comprehended under the idea of healthful exercise — 
that, indeed, being most healthful which makes us forget all 



130 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

ulterior ends in the mere enjoyment of it. What, for example, 
could be substituted for the jubilant shout of the playground, 
where the boy plays for the mere love of playing, and without 
reference to physiological laws ; while kindly Nature accom- 
plishes her ends unconsciously, and makes his very indifference 
beneficial to him. You may have more systematic motions, 
you may devise means for the more perfect traction of each 
particular muscle, but you cannot create the joy and gladness 
of the game, and where these are absent, the charm and the 
health of the exercise are gone. The case is similar with 
mental education ; but the extent to which this has been, and 
continues to be forgotten, would justify us in doubting whether 
Nature is so sparing of her gifts as to cause those souls which 
mark epochs in human history to be separated from each other 
by centuries, or whether the fact be not attributable to human 
mismanagement, by which the gifts referred to are squandered 
and misapplied. Why should the mind of youth be so com- 
pletely warped from its healthful and happy action, so utterly 
withdrawn from those studies to which its earliest tendencies 
point, and in the cultivation of which the concurrence of its 
ardour would powerfully tend to the augmentation of its 
strength, as to leave the man in after-life, unless enlightened by 
his visits to an institution such as that in which we are now 
assembled, in absolute ignorance as to whether the material 
world is governed by law or chance, or indeed whether those 
phenomena which excited his youthful questionings be not 
really the jugglery of Scandinavian Jotuns, or some similar 
demonic power ? 

The study of Physics, as already intimated, consists of two 
processes, which are complementary to each other — the tracing 
of facts to their causes, and the logical advance from the cause 
to the fact. In the former process, called induction, certain 
moral qualities come into play. It requires patient industry, 
and an humble and conscientious acceptance of what Nature 
reveals. The first condition of success is an honest receptivity 
and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, however 
cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth. Believe 
me, a self-renunciation which has something noble in it, and of 
which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private 
experience of the true votary of science. And if a man be not 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 131 

capable of this self-renunciation — this loyal surrender of himself 
to Nature, he lacks, in my opinion, the first mark of a true philo- 
sopher. Thus the earnest prosecutor of science, who does not 
work with the idea of producing a sensation in the world, who 
loves the truth better than the transitory blaze of to-day's fame, 
who comes to his task with a single eye, finds in that task an 
indirect means of the highest moral culture. And although the 
virtue of the act depends upon its privacy, this sacrifice of self, 
this upright determination to accept the truth, no matter how 
it may present itself — even at the hands of a scientific foe, if 
necessary — carries with it its own reward. When prejudice is 
put under foot and the stains of personal bias have been washed 
away — when a man consents to lay aside his vanity and to 
become Nature's organ — his elevation is the instant consequence 
of his humility. I should not wonder if my remarks provoked 
a smile, for they seem to indicate that I regard the man of 
science as an heroic, if not indeed an angelic, individual ; and 
cases may occur to you which seem to indicate the reverse. 
You may point to the quarrels of scientific men, to their 
struggles for priority, to that unpleasant egotism which screams 
around its little property of discovery like a scared plover 
about its young. I will not deny all this ; but let it be set 
down to its proper account, to the weakness — or, if you will — 
to the selfishness of Man, but not to the charge of Physical 
Science. 

The second process in physical investigation is deduction, or 
the advance of the mind from fixed principles to the conclusions 
which flow from them. The rules of logic are the formal 
statement of this process, which, however, was practised by 
every healthy mind before ever such rules were written. In 
the study of Physics, induction and deduction are perpetually 
married to each other. The man observes, strips facts of their 
peculiarities of form, and tries to unite them by their essences ; 
having effected this, he at once deduces, and thus checks his 
induction. Here the grand difference between the methods at 
present followed, and those of the ancients, becomes manifest. 
They were one-sided in these matters : they omitted the process 
of induction, and substituted conjecture for observation. They 
do not seem to have possessed sufficient patience to watch the 
slow processes of Nature, and to make themselves acquainted 



132 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

with the conditions under which she operates. They could 
never, therefore, fulfil the mission of Man given at the commence- 
ment, " Replenish the earth, and subdue it." The subjugation 
of Nature is only to be accomplished by the penetration of her 
secrets and the mastery of her laws. This not only enables us 
to turn her forces against each other, so as to protect ourselves 
from their hostile action, but makes them our slaves. By the 
study of Physics we have indeed opened to us treasuries of 
power of which antiquity never dreamed : we lord it over 
Matter, and in so doing have become better acquainted with 
the laws of Mind ; for to the mental philosopher the study of 
Physics furnishes a screen against which the human spirit 
projects its own image, and thus becomes capable of self- 
inspection. 

Thus, then, as a means of intellectual culture, the study of 
Physics exercises and sharpens observation : it brings the most 
exhaustive logic into play : it compares, abstracts, and 
generalizes, and provides a mental scenery admirably suited to 
the conducting of these processes. The strictest precision of 
thought is everywhere enforced, and prudence, foresight, and 
sagacity are demanded. By its appeals to experiment, it 
continually checks itself, and thus walks on a foundation of 
facts. Hence the exercise it invokes does not end in a mere 
game of intellectual gymnastics, such as the ancients delighted 
in, but tends to the mastery of natural agents. This gradual 
conquest of the external world, and the consciousness of 
augmented strength which accompanies it, render the study of 
Physics as delightful as it is important. Its effects upon the 
imagination I have not observed closely, but certain it is that 
the cool results of physical induction furnish conceptions which 
transcend most of those of imagination proper. Take, for 
example, the idea of an all-pervading ether which transmits a 
tingle, so to speak, to the finger-ends of the universe every time 
a street lamp is lighted. The little billows of this ether can be 
measured with the same ease and certainty as that with which 
an engineer measures a base and two angles, and from these 
finds the distance across the Thames. Now there is just as 
much poetry in the measurement of the river as in that of an 
ethereal undulation ; for the intellect, during the acts of 
measurement and calculation, destroys those notions of size 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 133 

which appeal to the poetic faculty. It is a mistake to suppose, 
with Dr. Young, that 

" An undevout astronomer is mad ; " 

there being no necessary connexion between a devout state of 
mind and the observations and calculations of a practical 
astronomer. For it is not until the man withdraws from his 
calculation, as a painter from his work, and thus realizes the 
great idea at which he has been engaged, that imagination and 
wonder are excited. Now here, I confess, is a possible danger. 
If the arithmetical processes of science be too exclusively 
pursued, they may, I think, impair the imagination, and thus 
the study of Physics is open to the same objection as philo- 
logical, theological, or political studies, when carried to excess. 
But even in this case, the injury done is to the investigator 
himself : it does not reach the mass of mankind. Indeed the 
conceptions furnished by his cold unimaginative reckonings may 
furnish themes for the poet, and excite in the highest degree 
that sentiment of wonder which, notwithstanding all its foolish 
vagaries, table-turning included, I, for my part, should be sorry 
to see banished from the world. 

I have thus far dwelt upon the study of Physics as an agent 
of intellectual culture ; but like other things in Nature, this 
study subserves more than a single end. The colours of the 
clouds delight the eye, and, no doubt, accomplish moral purposes 
also, but the selfsame clouds hold within their fleeces the mois- 
ture by which our fields are rendered fruitful. The sunbeams 
excite our interest and invite our investigation ; but they also 
extend their beneficent influences to our fruits and corn, and 
thus accomplish, not only intellectual ends, but minister, at the 
same time, to our material necessities. And so it is with 
scientific research. While the love of science is a sufficient 
incentive to the pursuit of science, and the investigator, in the 
prosecution of his inquiries, is raised above all material con- 
siderations, the results of his labours may exercise a potent 
influence upon the physical condition of Man. This is the 
arrangement of Nature, and not that of the scientific investi- 
gator himself ; for he usually pursues his object without regard 
to its practical applications. And let him who is dazzled by 
such applications — who sees in the steam-engine and the electric 



134 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

telegraph the highest embodiment of human genius and the only 
legitimate object of scientific research — beware of prescribing 
conditions to the investigator. Let him beware of attempting 
to substitute for that simple love with which the votary of 
science pursues his task, the calculations of what he is pleased 
to call utility. The professed utilitarian is unfortunately, in 
most cases, the very last man to see the occult sources from, 
which useful results are derived.. He admires the flower, but is 
totally ignorant of the conditions of its growth. The scientific 
man must approach Nature in his own way ; for if you invade 
his freedom by your so-called practical considerations, it may 
be at the expense of those qualities on which his success as a 
discoverer depends. Let the self-styled practical man look to 
those from the fecundity of whose thought he and thousands 
like him have sprung into existence. Were they inspired in 
their first inquiries by the calculations of utility ? Not one of 
them. They were often forced to live low and lie hard, and to 
seek a compensation for their penury in the delight which their 
favourite pursuits afforded them. In the words of one well 
qualified to speak upon this subject, " I say not merely look at 
the pittance of men like John Dalton, or the voluntary starva- 
tion of the late Graff ; but compare what is considered as 
competency or affluence by your Faradays, Liebigs, and 
Herschels with the expected results of a life of successful 
commercial enterprise : then compare the amount of mind put 
forth, the work done for society in either case, and you will be 
constrained to allow that the former belong to a class of workers 
who, properly speaking, are not paid, and cannot be paid for 
their work, as indeed it is of a sort to which no payment could 
stimulate." 

But while the scientific investigator, who, standing upon the 
frontiers of human knowledge, and aiming at the conquest of 
fresh soil from the surrounding region of the unknown, makes 
the discovery of truth his exclusive object for the time, he 
cannot but feel the deepest interest in the practical application 
of the truth discovered. There is something ennobling in the 
triumph of Mind over Matter : apart even from its uses to 
society, there is something sublime in the idea of Man having 
tamed that wild force which rushes through the telegraphic 
wire, and made it the minister of his will. Our attainments in 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 135 

these directions appear to be commensurate with our needs. 
We had already subdued horse and mule, and obtained from 
them all the service which it was in their power to render : we 
must either stand still or find more potent agents to execute 
our purposes. To stand still, however, was not in the plan of 
Him who made motion a condition of life, and, as if by His 
high arrangement, the steam-engine appeared. Remember 
that these are but new things ; that it is not long since we 
struck into the scientific methods which have produced these 
extraordinary results. We cannot for an instant regard them 
as the final achievements of Science, but rather as an earnest 
of what she is yet to do. They mark our first great advances 
upon the dominion of Nature. Animal strength fails, but here 
are the forces which hold the world together, and the instincts 
and successes of Man assure him that these forces are his when 
he is wise enough to command them. Is it not an object 
worthy the contemplation of a philosopher, to see a man 
experimenting in a corner, pondering in a closet, and gathering, 
by slow degrees, the mighty agencies of Nature into the 
sphericity of his little head : to see him come forth, and, in the 
application of his private thought, realize morally the physical 
dream of Archimedes, by lifting at an effort the whole world 
to a higher level. This has been done, and will probably be 
done again ; but the study of Physics always was, and ever 
must remain, the forerunner of such achievements. 

In the title of this Lecture, the study of Physics as a branch 
of education " for all classes " is spoken of. I am not quite 
sure that I understand the meaning intended to be conveyed 
by the words " all classes " ; and I have regarded the question 
with reference to those mental qualities which God has distri- 
buted without reference to class. As an instrument of intel- 
lectual culture, the study of Physics is profitable to all : as 
bearing upon special functions, its value, though not so great, is 
still more tangible. Why, for example, should Members of 
Parliament be ignorant of the subjects concerning which they 
are called upon to legislate ? In this land of practical physics, 
why should they be unable to form an independent opinion 
upon a physical question ? Why should the senator be left at 
the mercy of interested disputants when a scientific question is 
discussed, until he deems the nap a blessing which rescues him 



136 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

from the bewilderments of the committee-room ? The educa- 
tion which does not supply the want here referred to, fails in 
its duty to England. I state nothing visionary, when I say 
that in a country like ours, whose greatness depends so much 
upon the applications of physical science, it would be a whole- 
some and rational test to make admission to the House of 
Commons contingent on a knowledge of the principles of 
Natural Philosophy. With regard to our working people, in 
the ordinary sense of the term working, the study of Physics 
would, I imagine, be profitable, not only as a means of mental 
culture, but also as a moral influence to woo these people from 
pursuits which now degrade them. A man's reformation 
oftener depends upon the indirect, than upon the direct action 
of the will. The will must be exerted in the choice of employ- 
ment which shall break the force of temptation by erecting a 
barrier against it. The drunkard, for example, is in a perilous 
condition, if he content himself merely with saying, or swearing, 
that he will avoid strong drink. His thoughts, if not attracted 
by another force, will revert to the public-house, and to rescue 
him permanently from this, you must give him an equivalent. 
It would certainly be worth experiment to try what the study 
of Physics would do here. By investing the objects of hourly 
intercourse with an interest which prompts reflection, new 
enjoyments would be opened to the working man, and every 
one of these would be a point of force to protect him against 
temptation. Besides this, our factories and our foundries 
present an extensive field of observation, and were those who 
work in them rendered capable, by previous culture, of appre- 
ciating what they see, the results to science would be incal- 
culable. Who can say what intellectual Samsons are at the 
present moment toiling with closed eyes in the mills and forges 
of Manchester and Birmingham ? Grant these Samsons sight, 
give them some knowledge of Physics, and you multiply the 
chances of discovery, and with them the prospects of national 
advancement. In our multitudinous technical operations we 
are constantly playing with forces where our ignorance is often 
the cause of our destruction. There are agencies at work in a 
locomotive of which the maker of it probably never dreamed, 
but which nevertheless may be sufficient to convert it into an 
engine of death. Again, when we reflect on the intellectual 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 137 

condition of the people who work in our coal mines, those 
terrific explosions which occur from time to time need not 
astonish us. If these men possessed sufficient physical know- 
ledge, I doubt not, from the operatives themselves would 
emanate a system by which these shocking accidents might be 
effectually avoided. If they possessed the knowledge, their 
personal interests would furnish the necessary stimulus to its 
practical application, and thus two ends would be served at the 
same time — the elevation of the men and the diminution of the 
calamity. 

Before the present Course of Lectures was publicly announced, 
I had many misgivings as to the propriety of my taking a part 
in them. I felt that my place might be better filled by an older 
man, whose experience would be more entitled to respect. 
Small as my experience was, however, I resolved to adhere to 
it, and in what I have said regarding mental processes, I have 
described things as they reveal themselves to my own eyes, and 
have been enacted in my own limited practice. In doing this, 
I have been supported by the belief that there is one mind 
common to us all ; and that if I be true to the expression of 
this mind, even in a small particular, the truth will attest itself 
by a response in the convictions of my hearers. There may be 
the same difference between the utterance of two individuals of 
different ranges of intellectual power and experience on a sub- 
ject like the present, as between The Descent from the Cross, 
by Rubens, and the portrait of a spaniel dog. Neverthe- 
less, if the portrait of the spaniel be true to nature, it recom- 
mends itself as truth to the human mind, and excites, in some 
degree, the interest that truth ever inspires. Thus far I have 
endeavoured to keep all tints and features which really do not 
belong to the portrait of my spaniel, apart from it, and I ask 
your permission to proceed a little further in the same manner, 
and to refer to a fact or two in addition to those already cited, 
which presented themselves to my notice during my brief 
career as a teacher in the establishment already alluded to. 
The facts, though extremely humble, and deviating in some 
slight degree from the strict subject of the present discourse, 
[may yet serve to illustrate an educational principle. 

One of the duties which fell to my share, during the period to 
which I have referred, was the instruction of a class in mathe- 



138 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

matics, and I usually found that Euclid and the ancient 
geometry generally, when addressed to the understanding, 
formed a very attractive study for youth. But it was my 
habitual practice to withdraw the boys from the routine of the 
book, and to appeal to their self-power in the treatment of 
questions not comprehended in that routine. At first the 
change from the beaten track usually excited a little aversion : 
the youth felt like a child amid strangers ; but in no single 
instance have I found this aversion to continue. When utterly 
disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by that anecdote of 
Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and 
other men mainly to his own patience ; or of Mirabeau, when 
he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impos- 
sible, never to use that stupid word again. Thus cheered, he 
has returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps had some- 
thing of doubt in it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolu- 
tion to try again. I have seen the boy's eye brighten, and, at 
length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archimedes was 
but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, " I have it, sir." 
The consciousness of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense 
value ; and, animated by it, the progress of the class was truly 
astonishing. It was often my custom to give the boys their 
choice of pursuing their propositions in the book, or of trying 
their strength at others not to be found there. Never in a 
single instance have I known the book to be chosen. I was 
ever ready to assist when I deemed help needful, but my offers 
of assistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted 
the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of 
their own. I have seen their diagrams scratched on the walls, 
cut into the beams upon the playground, and numberless other 
illustrations of the living interest they took in the subject. For 
my own part, as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a 
mere fledgling : I knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as 
the Germans name it ; but I adhered to the spirit indicated at 
the commencement of this discourse, and endeavoured to make 
geometry a means and not a branch of education. The experi- 
ment was successful, and some of the most delightful hours of 
my existence have been spent in marking the vigorous and 
cheerful expansion of mental power, when appealed to in the 
manner I have described. 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 139 

And then again, the pleasure we all experienced was enhanced 
when we applied our mathematical knowledge to the solution 
of physical problems. Many objects of hourly contact had 
thus a new interest and significance imparted to them. The 
swing, the see-saw, the tension of the giant-stride ropes, the 
fall and rebound of the football, the advantage of a small 
boy over a large one when turning short, particularly in 
slippery weather ; all became subjects of investigation. Sup- 
posing a lady to stand before a looking-glass of the same height 
as herself, it was required to know how much of the glass was 
really useful to the lady ? and we learned, with great pleasure, 
the economic fact that she might dispense with the lower half 
and see her whole figure notwithstanding. It was also very 
pleasant to prove the angular velocity of a reflected beam to 
be twice that of the mirror which reflects it ; we also felt deep 
interest in ascertaining from the hum of a bee the number of 
times the little insect flaps its wings in a second. Following up 
our researches upon the pendulum, we were interested to learn 
how Colonel Sabine had made it the means of determining the 
figure of the earth ; and we were also startled by the inference 
which the pendulum enabled us to draw, that if the diurnal 
velocity of the earth were seventeen times its present amount, 
the centrifugal force at the equator would be precisely equal to 
the force of gravitation, and hence an inhabitant of those 
regions would have the same tendency to fall upwards as down- 
wards. All these, things were sources of wonder and delight to 
us : we could not but admire the perseverance of Man which 
had accomplished so much ; and then when we remembered 
that we were gifted with the same powers, and had the same 
great field to work in, our hopes arose that at some future day 
we might possibly push the subject a little further, and add our 
own victories to the conquests already won. 

I know I ought to apologize to you for dwelling so long upon 
this subject. But the days I spent among these youthful 
philosophers made a deep impression on me. I learned among 
them something of myself and of human nature, and obtained 
some notion of a teacher's vocation. If there be one profession 
in England of paramount importance, I believe it to be that of 
the schoolmaster ; and if there be a position where selfishness 
and incompetence do most serious mischief, by lowering the 



140 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

moral tone and exciting contempt and cunning where reverence 

and noble truthfulness ought to be the feelings evoked, it is 

that of the governor of a school. When a man of enlarged 

heart and mind comes among boys — when he allows his being 

to stream through them, and observes the operation of his own 

character evidenced in the elevation of theirs — it would be idle 

to talk of the position of such a man being honourable. It is 

a blessed position. The man is a blessing to himself and to all 

around him. Such men, I believe, are to be found in England, 

and it behoves those who busy themselves with the mechanics 

of education at the present day, to seek them out. For no' 

matter what means of culture may be chosen, whether physical 

or philological, success must ever mainly depend upon the 

amount of life, love, and earnestness which the teacher himself 

brings with him to his vocation.* 

* The following extract from a journal is, I think, too good to be omitted here. 
The writer of it — a pupil of Dirichlet and Steiner — would doubtless have felt 
himself more at home in dealing with elliptic functions than with the definitions 
of Euclid. But the manner in which he contrived to render the latter mysteries 
evident to a light-headed little boy, does credit to another faculty than his mere 
mathematical one, and will, I trust, prove as pleasant to the reader as it has to 

me. " K stammers distressingly, and this has impeded his progress very 

much. I have often passed him in the class, knowing that I could not get any 
intelligible answer from him, and had it not been for his eloquent eyes, which 
said, ' I know it, Sir, if I could but speak,' I might have mistaken him for a 
dunce, and thus done him great injustice. Through his love of mischief, how- 
ever, and his inability to cope with his schoolfellows, on account of his defective 
utterance, it was evident that he was losing interest in his work, or rather that 
he had never felt much interest in it, and it became necessary to awaken him. 
One day, after he had been more noisy and mischievous than usual, I told him 
rather sternly to put on his cap and foUow me. He did so, and I walked forward, 
while he, in a state of anxious suspense, walked behind me. After some moments' 

silence, I asked, ' Do you know, K , what I am going to do with you ? ' 

' Ne-ne-ne — no, Sir,' he replied. ' Well,' I said, ' I will tell you. I have 
spoken to you often enough, to no purpose, and now I intend to make you do 
better for the future.' We walked forward for some distance, and at length, 
putting my arm quietly around his neck, I broke silence once more. ' Can you 
tell me what an angle is, my boy ? ' ' Ye — ye — ye — yes, Sir, an angle is a — a — 
a — a — ,' he could get no further, and turned his eyes upon me beseechingly. 
' Well,' I replied to this silent appeal, ' go and pull two stalks of grass, and show 
me what an angle is.' This he did, and with the grass stalks continued to 
answer my questions on the geometrical definitions. We turned into a stubble 
field — by this time he had lost all fear, and could speak quite distinctly — ' What 
is a right angled triangle ? ' I asked. ' It has all its angles right angles, Sir.' 
' Indeed,' I replied, taking my arm from around his neck.. ' it has three right 
angles, has it ? Will you just kneel down ? ' He saw his mistake, stammered 
' two,' looked at me piteously and hesitated. ' On your knees, Sir,' I cried, and 
he knelt down, while I, falling on my knees beside him, said, ' Now pull up some 
stubble, and make me a triangle having either two or three right angles.' At 



THE STUDY OF PHYSICS 141 

Such are some of the thoughts which have floated before me, 
in a more or less distracted manner, in reference to the present 
hour ; and nobody can be more conscious of their manifold 
imperfections than 1 am myself. Apart from other disad- 
vantages, I have had the pressure of various duties interfering 
with the revival of my consciousness upon these matters, and 
thus preventing me from making the discourse as true a record 
of my own experience as I could wish it to be. I have through- 
out been less anxious to make out a case for Physics than to 
state the truth ; and I confess that the Lecture of this day 
week causes me to doubt whether you are not entitled to 
expect from me a more emphatic statement of the claims of 
the science which I now represent than that which I have laid 
before you. When I saw your Lecturer reduced to the necessity 
of pleading for science, and meekly claiming for it, from the 
Institution which we are accustomed to regard as the highest 
in this land, a recognition equal to that accorded to philology, 
I confess that the effect on me was to excite a certain revolu- 
tionary tendency in a mind which is usually tranquil almost to 
apathy in these matters. Science behind Philology ! The 
knowledge of the laws by which God's universe is sustained, 
and the perpetual advancement of humanity secured, inferior 
to that of the manner in which ancient and savage tribes put 
their syllables together, and express the varieties of mood, 
tense, and case ! As the pole of a magnet acting upon soft 
iron induces in the latter a condition opposed to its own, so the 
irrationality of those who cast this slight upon Science tends, 
no doubt, to excite an opposite error on the part of their 
antagonists, and to cause them, in retaliation, to underrate the 
real merits of Philology. But is there no mind in England 
large enough to see the value of both, and to secure for each 
of them fair play ? Oh ! let us not make this a fight of partisans 
-let the gleaned wealth of antiquity be showered into the open 
breast ; but while we " unsphere the spirit of Plato " and listen 

Dnce he saw his error, and the absurdity of our position, as we knelt together, 
faking geometrical diagrams with stubble. Springing to his feet, he shook 
with laughter — ' It has only one right angle, Sir — only one, of course ! ' I 
responded, ' Of course.' With my arm round his neck, we turned homewards, 
ind continued our lesson successfully. ' This is the punishment I had in store 
or you,' I said, when we reached home. ' Now go, and transgress no more,' to 
ivhich his eyes responded, ' I will, Sir.' " 



142 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

with delight to the lordly music of the past, let us honour by 
adequate recognition the genius of our own time. Let me 
again remind you that the claims of that science which finds in 
me to-day its unripened advocate, are the claims of God's 
workmanship upon the attention of His creatures, and that its 
exercises, as an agent of culture, are based upon the natural 
relations subsisting between Man and the world in which he 
dwells. Here, on the one side, we have the apparently lawless 
shifting of phenomena ; on the other side, mind, which requires 
law for its equilibrium, and in obedience to its own indestructible 
instincts, believes that these phenomena are reducible to law. 
To chasten this apparent chaos is a problem which man's 
Creator has set before him. The world was built in order : it 
is the visual record of the Creator's logic, and to us He has 
trusted the will and power to follow Him through this great 
argument. By the manifestations of Nature which He has 
ordained, He appeals to the faculties which He has implanted, 
and surrounds them from the cradle to the grave with objects 
which provoke them to inquiry. Descending for a moment 
from this high plea to considerations which lie closer to us as a 
nation — as a land of gas and furnaces, of steam and electricity : 
as a land which science, practically applied, has made great in 
peace and mighty in war : — I ask you whether this " land of old 
and just renown," which may God keep unimpaired, has not a 
right to expect from her institutions a culture more in accordance 
with her present needs than that supplied by declension and 
conjugation ? And if the tendency should be to lower the 
estimate of science, by regarding it exclusively as the instrument 
of material prosperity, let it be their high mission to furnish the 
proper counterpoise by pointing out its nobler uses, and lifting 
the national mind to the contemplation of it as the last develop- 
ment of that " increasing purpose " which runs through the 
ages and widens the thoughts of men. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF 
PHYSIOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION 
FOR ALL CLASSES 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL, INSTITUTION OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

By JAMES PAGET, F.R.S. 

Assistant-Surgeon and Lecturer on Physiology at St. Bartholomew's Hospital 

It is my office to submit to you the importance of the study of 
physiology as a branch of education for all classes ; to state 
the grounds on which it seems desirable that every one should 
learn somewhat of the structure of the human body, and of the 
processes that are carried on within it, and the laws according 
to which they are governed. 

The advantages to be expected from the general teaching of 
physiology may be grouped in two classes : the first, including 
such as would tend to the promotion of the science : the second, 
such as would belong to the students. 

By a wider diffusion of the knowledge of physiology its 
progress would be accelerated, as that of any other science 
would, by the increased number of the competent observers of 
its facts. 

But a larger advantage, and one which, I think, physiology 
needs more than any other science does, would arise in this ; 
that the communication would be easier, which is now so 
difficult, between those who are engaged in it, and those who 
specially devote themselves to other sciences that might assist 
it. Almost every process in the living body involves the 
exercise of mechanical and chemical — perhaps, also, of electrical 
— forces, whose effects are mingled with those of the more 
proper vital force ; and although this special force may modify, 
and in some sort veil, the effects of the others, yet must their 



144 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

influence be reckoned and allowed for in nearly every case we 
have to study. Therefore the complete solution of any new 
physiological problem must require such a master of all these 
sciences of dead and living matter as cannot now, I believe, be 
found, or else it must have the co-operation of many workers, 
each skilled in some single science, and able to communicate 
with all the rest. Such co-operation is, through the present 
narrowness of teaching, almost impossible. The mere chemist, 
or mechanical or electrical philosopher, and the mere physio- 
logist (one, I mean, who studies it chiefly by anatomy or by 
direct experiment), can scarcely so much as understand each 
other's language : they work apart at the same subject ; and 
sometimes even confuse each other, by showing the same facts 
in different lights, and explained in different and mutually 
unintelligible terms. I know well that it requires nearly all 
the power of a strong mind so to master any of the physical 
sciences as to be able to investigate its applications in the 
living body ; and that, therefore, few could hope to be at once 
excellent in physiology and in any science of dead matter ; but 
the co-operation that I speak of would not need more than 
that the skilled workman in each science should understand 
the language, and the chief principles, and modes of working, 
of the rest. I am sure that it is, in great measure, through the 
want of help, such as it might hence derive, that the onward 
steps of physiology are so slow, so retarded by backslidings, 
and by the consciousness of insecurity. 

And in yet another way I believe that the general 
teaching of physiology would insure its more rapid progress 
— namely, by finding out those who are especially fit for its 
study. 

If we mark the peculiar fitness of certain men for special 
callings, who are even below an average ability in the common 
business of life, one might imagine some natural design of 
mutual adaptation between things to be done and men to do 
them ; and certainly, it were to be wished that a wider scheme 
of education should leave it less to chance whether a man will 
fall, or fail to fall, in the way of that special work for which he 
seems designed. Really, it has seemed like a chance that has 
led nearly every one of our best physiologists to his appropriate 
work : like a chance, the loss of which might have consigned 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 145 

him to a life of failures, or of mediocrity, in some occupation 
for which he had neither capacity nor love. 

Such are some of the chief benefits that might result to 
physiology if it were more generally studied. I might tell of 
more ; but I will not do so, nor enlarge on these ; for it might 
be argued that it would be unjust to tax every one with 
intellectual labour for the advancement of one science, even 
though that science be the foundation of the healing art, in 
whose improvement every one is interested. I will rather try 
to show that, through such labour in the study of physiology, 
every one would gain for himself some more direct advantage. 

I believe that even a moderate acquaintance with the prin- 
ciples of physiology, acquired in early life, would benefit a man, 
with regard to both his body and his mind : and that it would 
do this by guiding him in the maintenance and improvement of 
health, by teaching him the true economy of his powers, whether 
mental or corporeal, by providing worthy materials for thought, 
and by cultivating peculiar modes, and suggesting peculiar 
ends, of thinking. 

But before I attempt to illustrate these things, let me meet 
an objection which is likely to be made against any proposal 
that physiology should be a subject of general education — 
namely, that it cannot be generally taught, because (it is 
supposed) its objects are difficult to show, and it requires 
dissections and painful experiments for its illustration. 

To such objections the answer is easy : that the rudiments 
of physiology are taught already, largely and efficiently, in 
several schools of both England and Scotland. For such 
instruction, no general practice of dissection or of experiments 
is at all necessary. For most of the illustrations, drawings 
would suffice ; especially such as those which have been con- 
structed with admirable art, and published for the use of 
schools, under the direction of Mr. Marshall, of University 
College, for the Board of Trade Department of Science. Other 
things could be well taught with models.* The organs of 
animals might, in some instances, be used ; and dried speci- 
mens. Only let there be a demand for the materials of such 

* Specimens were shown of models of the development of the chick, very 
accurately executed in wax, from nature, by Mr. Tuson. 



146 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

teaching, and I will venture to promise that modern art, such 
as these examples display, will soon supply them at no great 
cost, and without offence to the most refined feelings. 

But while I speak of what modern art would do, I am bound 
to add that the teaching of physiology, not by representations, 
but by the very objects of its study, was long ago sanctioned by 
the highest and most venerated authority in the land. For, in 
the Museum of the College of Surgeons, there are now several 
beautiful specimens of the chief organs of the human body, 
prepared by John Hunter, which formed part of a collection, 
made at Kew, by His Majesty King George III, for the instruc- 
tion of the princes, his sons. 

But if it be admitted that physiology can be generally taught, 
yet some may say that, so far as the improvement of health and 
the economy of power are concerned, such teaching is unneces- 
sary ; for that, to these ends, a man need only follow the 
guidance of nature and of instinct. And, indeed, at first 
thought, it may seem very strange that we should want instruc- 
tion for keeping ourselves in health ; strange that man should 
be left with no natural true guidance to so great a good : that 
man alone, for whom the earth seems made, should need mental 
labour to preserve or recover bodily health. Yet so it is : for 
none of our untaught faculties, neither our senses nor our 
instincts, are sufficient guides to good or guards from evil, in 
even the ordinary conditions of civilized life. 

The acuteness of our senses is not at all proportionate to the 
vital importance of the things that we observe with them. 
They are unable to discern the properties, or even the presence, 
of some of the most deadly agents. For example, we have a 
far keener sense of the temperature of the atmosphere than of 
its composition, or fitness for breathing : yet the ordinary 
changes in its temperature concern little more than our comfort ; 
those in its composition may affect our life. And thus it is that, 
seeking only the comfort of warmth, which their senses can 
discern, men will breathe atmospheres laden with noxious gases, 
which they can scarcely detect till they have accumulated to 
the peril of their lives. 

So with food : we have a keener sense of hunger and thirst 
than of the sufficiency or fitness of our foods. We can at once 
appreciate their flavour, but not their nutritive value ; and 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 147 

those we most affect are not always the most appropriate to 
our state. 

Our instincts avail us scarcely more. After childhood, in 
civilized life, the instincts are almost in abeyance, and the 
intellect and instruction have a share in the most ordinary acts 
of life. The sensations of thirst and hunger impel us instinc- 
tively to seek their satisfaction ; and by instinct we know how 
to do so ; but in doing it, we drink in adaptation to instruments 
of intellectual invention ; and we eat things intellectually 
cooked, with apparatus of intellectual art : yes, intellectual, for 
the meanest piece of cookery requires that control and manage- 
ment of fire, which no mind lower than the human intellect has 
ever reached, and the possession of which might alone suffice 
to prove man's primacy among all the creatures of the earth. 

But I need not multiply instances (I will not say of the 
inutility, but) of the insufficiency of our untaught powers for 
our guidance, in the commonest things of civilized life, relating 
to our health. Every one has suffered from following what has 
seemed some natural guidance, and has learned that we only 
gradually attain some knowledge of these things by experience 
or education ; i.e. by the exercise of the understanding as well 
as of the senses. 

If it be asked whether a state of ignorance regarding his own 
health be natural to man, I must answer that I suppose Provi- 
dence has taken ample care for his good, in all those things 
which are of natural ordinance and independent of his will : but 
that, for those conditions which he generates or incurs by his 
own power and free-will, he is left by the same power to provide. 
I suppose that men may, generally, be, like other creatures, 
aware, by sense or instinct, of those things which are for their 
good, when the simplest conditions of their existence are 
undisturbed. But these are not the conditions in which we 
live. Men have disturbed, in successive generations, almost 
every simple and original condition of their existence. In every 
generation they have been striving, with intellectual labour, to 
add to the comforts and luxuries of life, to their control of the 
forces, and their independence of the ordinary course, of 
nature. And many of their successes in this strife, being 
achieved by the disturbance of some natural and fit condition 
If mere subsistence, have almost necessarily incurred some 



148 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

consequent evils, which have marred, though they may not 
have neutralized, the good, and have gradually accumulated to 
our damage. 

If, indeed, in all the improvements of our means of life, only 
half the trouble had been taken to prevent or remedy the 
future evil that was taken to attain the present good, our state 
might have been far different. If, for examples, men had been 
as anxious to invent the means of destroying coal-smoke, as to 
gain the myriad benefits of coal-fires ; if they had thought as 
much and as soon of constructing drains below the ground, as* 
of building above it ; as much even of clearing out the refuse 
of our gas-lights, as of tempering and diffusing their brilliancy 
for comfortable use ; — then we might have gained unalloyed 
benefits from every such disturbance of the natural conditions 
of life : the vast catalogue of diseases appertaining to our social 
state might have been unwritten ; and that which one age 
hailed as a national blessing might not have entailed upon the 
next a national calamity. But this has not been done ; and 
thus, from age to age, the evil residues of good things have 
accumulated ; the good still, happily, preponderating, but the 
evils such as every man, and every society of men, have now to 
guard against, and such as can be averted or counteracted with 
no other human power than that of the intellect instructed in 
the science of health. 

Perhaps, now, the only question is, whether this instruction 
need be given to all, or whether it had not better be still left, as 
it is by present custom, to a few, to exercise it in a special 
profession. I cannot doubt that here, as in other cases, for aJ 
ordinary care, tor all habitual management, each man should 
be fit to be his own guardian ; while for emergencies, and the 
more unusual events, he should accept and be able to choose 
some more instructed guidance. It is not necessary, or likely, 
that every one who has learnt somewhat of the structure of his 
own body, and of the processes carried on in it, should seek tc 
be his own doctor ; not more so than that every one who has 
learnt the construction and principle of a steam-engine shoulc 
be restless unless he be his own engineer. We need not fear i 
misuse, through excessive use, of such physiology as can be 
generally taught. Certainly, if I may speak as one of th( 
medical profession, we see greater injury sustained through 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 149 

ignorance than is likely to accrue to imperfect knowledge, 
whether it be the most timid or the most rash. 

And here, when I speak of ignorance, I am obliged to say 
that I do not mean only the state of those who are wholly 
uneducated, but include the state of nearly all who have not 
received some special teaching. For, really, in regard to all 
that concerns our life and health, it seems as if no amount of 
general education, no clearness of apprehension for science or 
for the general business of life, were sufficient for security 
against the grossest errors. I will not speak of the follies (as I 
believe them to be), that are now regarded as truths, and even 
Useful truths, by generally well-instructed, shrewd, and accom- 
plished persons. I will only say that, at all times, such persons 
have been as ready as the most uneducated to believe and 
submit themselves to practices which the physiology even of 
their own times could prove to be gross and mischievous 
fallacies. In every age, it has been true that " the desire of 
health, like the desire of wealth, brings all intellects to the same 
level " ; that is, all that have not some special wisdom in the 
art of health or of wealth. 

If now it may be received that physiology should be generally 
studied for the sake of health, it may be asked what parts of it 
should be chiefly taught, and in what method ? I might leave 
this to those who are occupied with general education, and with 
younger students than I have had to teach. But considering 
that the large majority of those to whom it would be taught 
are to be engaged, in after life, in pursuits alien from science, 
and that we therefore could not hope to do much more than 
leave general impressions such as might abide for general 
guidance, I feel nearly sure that the mere facts of physiology, 
and much more those of anatomy, should be taught in subordi- 
nation to their general principles. 

If I try to illustrate this by an example, I fear lest to some I 
seem almost unintelligible ; for I have never before lectured 
except to students or members of my own profession, to whom 
I could use technical terms, and whom I could suppose to be, 
in some measure, already acquainted with my subject. 

But, for an example, in relation to the economy of power, 
suppose of muscular power, and thereby in regard to the main- 



150 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

tenance of health, it would have to be taught that, in the living 
body, the apparent stability and persistence of its structures is 
due, not to their being literally indestructible, but to the 
constant operation of a process in them by which the particles 
that decay, or are outworn in the exercise of their offices, are 
constantly removed, and replaced by new ones like themselves. 
We know that in all the actions of the body there is waste and 
impairment of the active parts. But though, day after day, 
we exert, even in the common acts of life, in walking, feeding, 
breathing, thinking, talking, great amounts of force, and 
though, with the use of force, there is always a proportionate 
consumption of the material of our bodies, yet, year after year 
(at least for many years), we appear to be and feel the same : 
because the consumption, the wear and tear, of material that 
occurs in the action of our several parts is constantly repaired 
in the intervals of rest. 

Then, following out this principle, it might be shown that 
an economy of vital power is commonly maintained in the body 
by the just regulation of alternate periods of action and repose ; 
and this might be taken as a principle for useful illustration. 

The climax of the exercise of muscular power seems to be 
attained in the heart. Perhaps there is nothing, of equal 
weight, that exerts in the same time so large an amount of 
force as a heart does. In every second, or oftener, discharging 
blood from its cavities with a force equal to the lifting of a 
weight of from ten to fifteen pounds, it goes on hour after hour, 
and year after year, untired and almost unchanged. Now, by 
the similarity between the structure and mode of contraction 
of the muscular fibres of the heart, and those of the muscles 
over which we have control, we may be sure that its fibres are 
subject to the same impairment in their actions as theirs are 
known to be ; and that they must need the same repair in rest 
as the voluntary muscles obtain in sleep. But the heart seems 
never to sleep - ; and we explain the secret of its apparently 
unceasing exercise of power by referring to its exact rhythm oi 
alternating contractions and dilatations ; by the fact thai 
every contraction by which it forces blood into the vessels 
i.e. every act which we can feel as a beat or throb, is succeedec 
by an interval of rest, or inaction, of the same length ; anc 
by the probability that in each period of inaction (brief a; 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 151 

it is) the changes that occurred during the contraction are 
repaired. 

It is the same with the muscles for breathing, in their 
ordinary and involuntary exercise. The alternation of their 
action and repose is constant ; and they too, though exerting 
forces that are truly enormous, neither waste nor weary them- 
selves ; because (we may hold) in every period of inaction they 
repair the changes wrought in them by their action. 

Now the principle which is thus illustrated may probably be 
applied to nearly all muscular exertion. Whatever work is to 
be done, the largest amount of force may be utilized with the 
least injury when rest and action are made to be alternate. 
And this is to be observed, not only in that long rest which our 
voluntary muscles have in sleep, but, equally, in more active 
life ; wherein more force is always obtained by the alternate 
action of certain groups of muscles than by the sustained 
action of any single group. Thus, I think, it can be proved 
that there are no voluntary actions in which the human body 
can exercise larger amounts of force than in ordinary progres- 
sion, as in walking or in running. And it is because of the 
alternation of the similar acts done by the two halves of the 
body, and especially by the two lower extremities. For if you 
watch a man walking, you will see that each of his limbs is 
doing exactly the opposite to what the other is doing, and to 
what itself has just finished doing; and the corresponding 
muscles are never in the same action upon both sides at once : 
and so if one step has been made, say, chiefly, with the 
muscular effort of the right limb, the next will be made with 
a similar effort of the left, while the muscles of the right will 
have an interval of comparative inaction. 

In some measure, therefore, the principle of alternate action 
and repose, typified in the case of the heart, is applied here. 
But it is not so completely observed ; for we tire in walking, 
even while our hearts may be growing more active. This, 
however, is not only because of the motion, but because many 
muscles must be in almost constant exercise for the maintenance 
of the erect posture, and because, probabty, in these voluntary 
exercises the rest of a muscle is never quite perfect, even in its 
relaxing state. 

This same principle, of the economy of force in the alternation 



152 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

of action and repose, is doubtless true of the nervous as of the 
muscular system ; and on it we explain the need of repose, 
prolonged and deep, in direct proportion to the length and 
intensity of mental exercise. On the same principle we explain 
the refreshment of the mind by change of occupation or of the 
train of thought : so that, while one part of the brain is occupied, 
another may be at rest after its work is done. And many like 
things may be thus explained, which it would be well for all to 
know, but chiefly for those who have to teach, and who need to 
regulate their pupils' mental exercises with the best economy 
they can. 

There is another class of organs in which the alternations of 
action and rest, of waste and repair, appear essential to the full 
exercise and economy of power. The stomach is one of these ; 
and a knowledge of the method of its office of digestion might 
prevent somewhat of its almost universal misuse. 

Its chief office in digestion is to produce a peculiar fluid 
which, mingling with the food, may, by a process similar to 
fermentation, reduce it to solution or to a state of extremely 
minute division. This fluid, the gastric or digestive fluid, does 
not merely ooze from the blood ; but is so formed in minute 
cells that, for each minutest microscopic drop of it, a cell, of 
complex structure, must be developed, grow, and burst or be 
dissolved. 

A diagram would very well show how the lining membrane 
of the stomach is formed, almost entirely, of minute tubes, set 
vertically in its thickness, like little flasks or test-tubes, close- 
packed and upright. The outer walls of these are webbed over 
with networks of most delicate blood-vessels, carrying streams 
of blood. Within, the same tubes contain cells, and those 
among them which chiefly secrete the digestive fluid are nearly 
filled with cells, which have taken materials from the blood, and 
from those materials have formed themselves and their contents. 
In what way they have done this, we cannot tell : but we can 
tell that the process is one of complicate though speedy develop- 
ment and growth ; even such a process as that by which, more 
slowly, the body grows, or any of its parts — the hair or the 
nails, or any other that we can best watch. The act of 
secretion or production of this fluid is, literally, the growth 
and dissolution of the minute cells which, though they be very 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 153 

short-lived, yet must need a certain time for their complete 
elaboration. 

If this be so, it must follow that we cannot, with impunity, 
interfere with that which seems a natural rule, of allowing 
certain intervals between the several times of feeding. Every 
act of digestion involves the consumption of some of these cells : 
on every contact of food, some must quickly perfect themselves, 
and yield up their contents ; and without doubt, the design of 
that periodical taking of food, which is natural to our race, is 
that, in the intervals, there may be time for the production of 
the cells that are to be consumed in the next succeeding acts of 
■digestion. We can, indeed, state no constant rule as to the 
time required for such constructions : it probably varies 
according to age, and the kind of food, and the general activity 
or indolence of life, and, above all, according to habit ; but it 
may be certainly held that when the times are set, they cannot, 
with impunity, be often interfered with ; and, as certainly, that 
continual or irregular feeding is wholly contrary to the economy 
of the human stomach. And yet such constant feeding is a 
frequent custom — not infrequent among the adult rich, but 
most frequent among the infants of the poor, for whom food is 
the solace of every grief. 

I would thus try to teach general principles of physiology ; 
and with such principles there might easily be combined some 
useful rules for prudence in the ordinary management of 
personal or social health, and in the habitual exercise of power. 
I will not venture to say that it is only by teaching physiology 
that prudence can be taught ; for even in the cases I have cited, 
physiology teaches no other rule than nature and experience 
had already indicated. Still, even in regard to those rules, 
when it shows their reason and their meaning, it gives them 
strength, and it enlists the power of the understanding against 
the overbearing of inclination and bad habit. And so, though 
it might be impossible to teach more than a small part of the 
whole body of physiology, yet one who had learned even this 
part would have a better apprehension of the rest than one 
untaught could have. One who had learned the general mode 
of study, and the labour which is spent in ascertaining physio- 
logical truths, and the great probability that what is generally 
accepted is at least nearly true, would, more than an untaught 



154 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

man, act on the advice of those who are instructed. Thus 
acting, he would, as a citizen, be no hinderer of improvements, 
no block of utter ignorance in the way of amending the sanitary 
condition of his fellows : with belief, if not with knowledge, he 
would give his help to good. And for his own guidance, such 
a one, though only partially instructed, would be a far better 
judge than most men are of the probable value of professed 
discoveries in medicine ; he would be doubtful of all unreserved 
assertions ; wisely incredulous of all results, supposed to flow 
from apparently incompetent sources. Even the desire of 
health would bear frequent disappointment before it would 
induce him to commit himself to the daring promises of 
ignorance. 

I have said that we might anticipate advantages to the mind, 
as well as to the bodily health, from making physiology a branch 
of general education. And some of these advantages must not 
be widely separated from those of which I have been speaking : 
for they are, in truth, closely correspondent, derived from the 
same source and by the same method. The health of the mind, 
so far as it is within our own control, is subject to the same 
laws as is the health of the body. For the brain, the organ of 
the mind, grows and is maintained according to the same 
method of nutrition as every other part of the body ; it is 
supplied by the same blood ; and through the blood, like every 
other part, may be affected for good or ill by the various 
physical influences to which it is exposed. But I will not dwell 
on this more than to assert, as safely deducible from physiology, 
that no scheme of instruction, or of legislation, can avail for 
the improvement of the human mind, which does not provide 
with equal care for the well-being of the human body. Deprive 
men of fresh air, and pure water, of the light of heaven, and of 
sufficient food and rest, and as surely as their bodies will 
become dwarfish, and pallid, and diseased, so surely will their 
minds degenerate in intellectual and moral power. 

But let me suppose that these needs of the body may be 
happily within men's reach ; and then I may speak of the 
advantages that would accrue from the general study of 
physiology, in the mental culture it would provide. 

I again remind myself that the cases to be kept in view are 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 155 

not only those of men who are to be chiefly occupied with 
science, but those of persons who are to pursue the various 
common businesses of life ; and upon whose minds we cannot 
expect that those studies of their school-time, which would be 
widely different from the occupations of their later life, will do 
more than leave general impressions, and impart an habitual 
method and tone of thought. To such persons I believe that 
the study of physiology would be useful, first, on the general 
ground that they who can, with most force, apply themselves 
to any business in life (be it what it may) are those whose minds 
are disciplined and informed in all their parts, so as to be not 
only full and strong, but pliant, liberal, and adaptive. 

Now, there are some characters in physiology by means of 
which its study might affect the mind, or certain parts of it, 
differently from any portions of even that enlarged education 
which it is the object of this whole course of lectures to recom- 
mend. 

One of these is, that it is occupied with things of admitted 
incompleteness and uncertainty. In other, and especially in 
the physical, sciences, I think it is only the master, or the 
advanced student, who is impressed with their uncertainty. In 
them, speaking generally, that which is taught admits of clear 
proof ; and imperfection is not spoken of, except, as it were, at 
the distant boundaries of a vast body of truth. But, in physio- 
logy, the teacher would need everywhere to mark the imperfec- 
tions of his knowledge ; in the very rudiments, he must speak 
of things as only, in various degrees, probable. 

Some of my predecessors in this course have shown how 
much the value of the physical sciences lies in the possibility 
of proving what is held in them, and in the precision of the 
mental exercises which they thus demand and cultivate ; and 
no one can be more conscious than I am that, on this account, 
they are indispensable elements of sound education. But I 
believe, also, that it would be right to mingle with this study 
that of a much more incomplete and uncertain science. I think 
it would be good, at least for some minds, to know in early life 
how much has yet to be done in science ; so that some through 
ambition of discovery, some through love of enterprise, some 
through mere curiosity, might be excited to work among the 
stores of unexplored knowledge that would be pointed out to 



156 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

them. It is strange how early, and how strong in early life, 
these ambitions of discovery and invention arise ; and I 
suppose that, in all later life, there are no enjoyments more 
keen, or more invigorating to the mind, than those felt in 
boyhood, when such an ambition is gratified ; — whether by the 
finding of some plant unknown before in the home-district, or 
by the invention of some new appliance to a toy, imitating 
what men deal with, or — it matters not by how trivial a thing. 
I would not venture to say how large a part such ambition 
should be allowed to have among the motives to study, but I 
think it should not be quite suppressed, or starved, as it is by 
teaching only such things as are already proved, or decided by 
authority. 

And, perhaps, yet another advantage would flow from the 
teaching of physiology, honestly and expressly, as a very 
incomplete and uncertain science. It is a great hindrance to 
the progress of truth that some men will hold, with equal 
tenacity, things that are, and things that are not, proved ; and 
even things that, from their very nature, do not admit of 
proof. They seem to think (and ordinary education might be 
pleaded as justifying the thought) that a plain " yes " or " no " 
can be answered to every question that can be plainly asked ; 
and that everything thus answered is a settled thing, and to be 
maintained as a point of conscience. I need not adduce 
instances of this error, while its mischiefs are manifest every- 
where in the wrongs done by premature and tenacious judg- 
ments. 

I am aware that these are faults of the temper, not less than 
of the judgment ; but we know how much the temper is 
influenced by the character of our studies ; and I think if 
any one were to be free from this over-zeal of opinion, it should 
be one who is early instructed in an uncertain science, such as 
physiology. He might receive, with reverent submission, all 
revealed truth ; he might bend unquestioning to the declara- 
tions of teachers authorized to promulgate positive command- 
ments ; but his habit of thinking how soon all inquiries con- 
cerning living things end in uncertainty, his experience of the 
exceeding difficulty of settling for ever even a small matter, 
would make him very scrupulous in accepting as completely 
proved, very slow in making a point of conscience of, anything 






THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 157 

that may be made a matter of reasonable discussion or of 
further study. 

Let me repeat that I do not hold that it is beneficial to study 
only or chiefly such a science as this, whose principles scarcely 
admit of full proof. I know too well the danger of resting 
satisfied with error, when truth cannot be quite attained. But 
I lecture only as one of many, advocating the importance of as 
many different branches of study ; and I think that the early 
study of uncertainties might well be mingled with that of things 
which may be proved beyond all doubt. 

But I have yet to speak of that through which, I believe, the 
general teaching of physiology would exercise the greatest 
influence upon the mind ; namely, its being, essentially, a 
science of designs and final causes. In this (if we regard it in 
its full meaning, as the science concerning living things) it is 
chiefly in contrast with the physical sciences, and, so far as I 
know, with nearly all the other studies of even the widest 
scheme of education. 

I do not say that it is only in living things that we can 
discern the evidences of design. Doubtless, things that are 
dead — things that we call inorganic, when we would distinguish 
them from living organisms — are yet purposive, and mutually 
adapted to co-operate in the fulfilment of design. We cannot 
doubt, for example, that all the parts of this dead earth, and 
all the members of our planetary system, are adapted to one 
another with mutual influence ; balanced and laid out in 
appropriate weight and measure ; fitted each to do its part, 
and serve its purpose, in some vast design. And thus the whole 
universe might be called an organism ; constructed in parts 
and systems, almost infinite in number and variety, but 
adjusted with an all-pervading purpose. Still, there is a 
striking difference between dead and living things, in the degree 
and manner in which their laws and their designs are manifest 
to us. In the inorganic world, in the studies of the physical 
sciences, we seem to come nearer to the efficient, than to the 
final, causes of events : we discern, it may be, both the most 
general laws and the most minute details of the events ; but 
these rarely shadow forth their purpose or design ; or, if they 
do, it is a design in adaptation to organic life, as where we may 
trace the fitness of the earth and air for their living occupants. 



158 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

But, in the inorganic world, the reverse is true : purpose, 
design, and mutual fitness are manifest wherever we can 
discern the structure or the actions of a part ; utility and 
mutual dependence are implied in all the language, and sought 
in all the studies, of physiology. The efficient causes and the 
general laws of the vital actions may Be hidden from the keenest 
search ; but their final causes are often nearly certain. In the 
sciences of the inorganic world, we can learn how changes are 
accomplished, but we can rarely tell why they are : in those of 
the organic world, the question " why " can be often answered, 
the question " how " is generally an enigma that we cannot 
solve. 

Now, were there no other argument for the general teaching 
of physiology, I would be content with this : that an education 
which does not include the teaching of some science of natural 
designs does not provide for the instruction of one of the best 
powers and aspirations of the mind. 

The askings of children seem to indicate a natural desire after 
the knowledge of the purposes fulfilled in nature. " Why ? " 
and " Of what use ? " are the ends of half their untutored 
questions ; and we may be sure they have not the wish for 
such knowledge without the power of attaining it, if the needful 
help be given them. And yet, in the usual subjects of educa- 
tion, nothing addresses itself to this desire, and so there is not 
only a neglect of the teaching of the peculiar modes of reasoning 
required, or admitted, in physiological research ; but the natural 
love and capacity for studying design are left to spend them- 
selves, untrained, upon unworthy objects ; and so they fade or 
degenerate — degenerate, perhaps, into some such baseness as 
an impertinent curiosity about other men's matters. 

I would therefore have physiology taught to all, as a study of 
God's designs and purposes achieved ; as a science for which 
our natural desire after the knowledge of final causes seems to 
have been destined ; a science in which that desire, though it 
were infinite, might be satisfied ; and in which, as with perfect 
models of beneficence and wisdom, our own faculties of design 
may be instructed. I would not have its teaching limited to a 
bare declaration of the use and exact fitness of each part or 
organ of the body. This, indeed, should not be omitted ; for 
there are noble truths in the simplest demonstrations of the 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 159 

fitness of parts for their simplest purposes, and no study has 
been made more attractive than this by the ingenuity, the 
acuteness, and eloquence of its teachers. But I would go 
beyond this, and striving, as I said before, to teach general 
truths as well as the details of science, I would try to lead the 
mind to the contemplation of those general designs from which 
it might gather the best lessons for its own guidance. 

If I may presume to speak as I would to boys or girls, I would 
say let us learn frugality from some of the designs that we can 
study in the living body ; and surely the lesson may be the 
more impressive if we remember that we are studying the 
frugality of One whose power and materials are infinite. 

Observe, for example, what happens during active exercise ; 
how the heart beats quicker and harder than it did before, and 
the skin grows warmer and ruddier, and the blood moves faster, 
and the breathing is quicker. The main design of this seems 
to be that the active muscles may be the more abundantly 
supplied with blood. But the beginning in the series of changes 
is an instance of that designed frugality of which I have been 
speaking. Veins, carrying blood to the heart, lie, as you see, 
branching and communicating under the skin ; and there are 
others like them deeper set among the muscles of both the 
limbs and the trunk. Now, muscles, when they act, shorten 
and swell up : and in so doing (as in active exercise) they 
compress the veins that lie between them, or upon them under- 
neath the skin. The effect of such compression must be to 
press the blood in every vein, equally in both directions — both 
onwards towards the heart, and backwards from it. All that 
part of this pressure which is effective in propelling the blood 
towards the heart is so much added to the forces of the circula- 
tion ; it is so much direct gain of force. But it may seem as if 
this gain were balanced by an equal loss, through the influence 
of the same pressure driving other portions of the blood back- 
wards. And so it would be, but for the arrangement of valves 
in the veins, which are the instruments of this saving of force. 
Wherever there are muscles that in their action can compress 
the veins, there, also, the veins have valves ; and a diagram 
or a model would show that these are little pocket-shaped 
membranes, which project into the canals of the veins in such 
a manner that they will allow the streams of blood to pass 



160 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

onwards to the heart, but will close at once and hinder any 
stream that would flow backwards. Thus, therefore, the effect 
of muscular pressure on the veins is (let us say), with a certain 
force, to propel some blood towards the heart, and with the 
same force to press back other blood upon the valves and close 
them. You will say, then, here is still the same hindrance : if 
the valves be closed, the stream behind them must be stopped, 
and there is as much loss as gain. It would be so if there were ' 
not this other provision : that wherever there can be muscular 
pressure upon veins, those veins not only have valves, but have ; 
abundant channels of communication with one another. The 
back-pressure of the blood, and the closure of the valves, is 
therefore no hindrance to the circulation ; for the blood that 
might be stopped in one vein makes its way at once into 
another by some communicating branch. The general result, 
therefore, is, that all muscular pressure upon veins is an almost 
unalloyed advantage to the circulation. And now mark the 
frugality of the design. Veins must lie in or near these places. ' 
and the muscles must act (suppose for some design of our own) ; ; 
and if they are to be in very active exercise, they will need 
swifter streams of blood than will suffice in their repose. The 
streams could be made swifter by a greater force of the heart ; 
but heart-force is a thing to be economized ; and the muscles 
themselves may, without harm, contribute to accelerate the 
blood ; for in the fulfilment of their primary purpose, of moving 
and sustaining the limbs and trunk, they must swell up, and 
compress the veins that are about them ; and this compression 
can be made effective for the circulation of the blood by the 
mechanism of valves. So then, in the necessary fulfilment of 
their primary use, and without the least hindrance or damage 
to it, the muscles are made to serve this secondary purpose ; 
and all that they do herein is so much saved to the forces of the 
heart. 

Scarcely a lesson in physiology could be given but it might 
illustrate some such design as this. Everywhere we see 
examples of parts thus made to serve by-purposes while 
fulfilling their primary designs. 

I will mention but one more. All know that the air we' have 
once breathed is less fit for breathing than it was before, and 
that if we breathe the same air often it becomes poisonous 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 161 

through the mixture of the carbonic acid and other exhalations 
from the lungs. We must breathe out the air, therefore, as so 
much refuse ; and ample provision is made that we may do 
so ; and it might seem design enough fulfilled when we are 
thus freed from our own poison. But is it not an admirable 
secondary design, an admirable frugality, a true wisdom by the 
way, that, with this same air, we speak ; that this, which we 
I must cast out lest it destroy us, should be used for one of the 
noblest powers of man ? Surely, one might have supposed, for 
j so great a purpose as the communion of human thoughts, and 
for all that speech and vocal melody can achieve, there would 
be contrived some matchless instrument, some rare material. 
But no : the instruments of human speech are scarcely more 
complex organs than those which dumb creatures have to 
breathe and feed with ; and the material for human speech 
carries out the refuse of the blood ; the very dross of the body 
is used for the coinage of the mind. 

Such might be some lessons in that Divine frugality which is 
ever " gathering up the fragments that remain, that nothing be 
lost." The moral of such lessons is very plain. 

Not less significant are those which may be studied in the 
designs of the body during its development. All these are 
instances of present things having their true purpose in some 
future state. 

Let me endeavour to illustrate some of them. 
I have here models of the changes that the chick undergoes 
in its development ; and what they show might suffice for 
teaching the development of higher creatures. Now, nearly 
all we see here is the working out of a design, which cannot 
have its full end till some future time. These wings and legs — 
of what avail are they to the prisoner in the shell ? Their 
purpose is not yet fulfilled ; they are for the future. But if 
these be too plain to be impressive, let us look at more particular 
things. 

Observe the changes through which the heart passes, from its 
first appearance as a little pulsating bag, to its being nearly fit 
for the time when the hatched bird will breathe in the open air. 
The changes are not merely a growth from a little heart to a 
big one ; but are a series of acquirements of more complex 
shapes ; so that the heart, which at first is a simple bag, then 



162 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

becomes very curved, and then divides into two, and then into 
three and four, cavities. Now, doubtless, in each of these 
conditions, the heart is exactly appropriate to the contemporary 
state of the other organs, and the circumstances of the time of 
life ; but each of them is, besides, a necessary stage of transition 
towards that more perfect state, that fitness for more complex 
duties, which the heart attains when the bird is born to breathe 
with lungs in the open air. 

But I would descend yet lower, and, magnifying the wonders 
of these plans for the future, by diminishing (as it may seem 
to some) the importance of the objects in which they are dis- 
played, would trace the development of a single blood-cell in a 
tadpole — i.e. in the young fish-like embryo of a frog, such as 
nearly every pool would supply in the spring-time, and such as 
magnified sketches would fully illustrate. 

By a blood-cell I mean one of those microscopic particles by 
which the blood is coloured red : particles so minute that, in 
our own blood, about ten millions might lie on a square inch of 
surface. 

In the earliest period of active life of these tadpoles, the 
little black and fish-like body is composed almost wholly of 
minute cells, among which you can trace, with even powerful 
microscopes, scarce any difference. You could not tell the 
future destiny of any of them by their present characters ; they 
look all alike. But presently, as they increase in number, a 
differencing begins among them, and a sorting of them ; and 
some arrange themselves for a spinal column, and some for 
muscles ; and some are seen to be placed where the first streams 
of blood are to run ; and some are clustered where the heart 
will be. At first, those that are to be blood-cells are round, 
and darkly shaded, and contain yellowish particles, many of 
which are like four-sided crystals of some fatty substance. Butj 
in a day or two, the cells begin to move and circulate in th& 
channels in which they were arranged ; and then, as we watch 
them day by day, they gradually change. The particles within 
them become smaller and less numerous, and collect near tfi 
their borders ; while their centres, clearing up, show an enclosed 
smaller body or nucleus. Moreover, as these changes proceed, 
the cells which were before colourless acquire gradually a 
deeper and deeper blood- tint, and exchange their round for an 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 163 

oval shape ; till, by the time that all the particles they first 
contained are cleared away, as if by solution, they have become 
perfect blood-cells, nearly like those which colour the blood of 
the completely developed frog. 

The time required for these changes depends much on the 
temperature and degree of light to which the creature is exposed. 
It may vary from one to three or more weeks ; and we can 
thus deliberately watch the development of a blood-cell, day 
by day, until it reaches that which we may call its perfection. 
In this state the cells abide for a time, unchanging ; and then 
decline and give place to another set of blood-cells, each of 
which is developed through a series of changes different, indeed, 
from those that I have described, but not less numerous or 
complex. 

Now, such is the life, up to the period of perfection, of every 
blood-cell in this trivial creature. And so it is in ourselves. Of 
the millions of those cells that colour our blood, not one reaches 
its perfection but through changes as numerous and great as 
these. 

Perhaps the wonder is augmented if we think that, in the 
embryo, the changes proceed, with equal steps, in all the cells 
at once : there is exact concert among them ; if I may so speak, 
they all keep time. Nor is the harmony limited to them : for 
their development is exactly adjusted to that of every other 
part ; successive changes are exactly concurrent in every part 
at once ; so that, though all are continually changing, they 
never lose their mutual fitness. 

I might cite more instances of these plans for futurity ; but 
they are nearly infinite ; for in truth (and what a moral there 
is in such a truth !) in the living world, nothing is made at once 
fit for the highest purposes of which it may be capable. In all 
the countless crowds of living beings — in all the countless 
particles of each — there is not one but in the history of its life 
we may read a gradual attainment of its highest destiny : not 
one but has a time in which its true purpose is yet future, its 
true design yet unfulfilled ; and, although, even in its rudiment, 
it is not useless, yet there will be a time when, with higher 
powers, it will take part in the designs of some more perfect 
state. So wide is that law, which has its highest instance in 
the history and future destiny of man himself. 



164 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

But the evidence of the design of living bodies for conditions 
that are yet future, seems to culminate in the proofs of their 
capacity to repair injuries, and to recover from diseases. 

It is surely only because it is so familiar that we think lightly, 
if at all, of the fact that living bodies are capable of repairing 
most of the injuries they may sustain ; and that, in this capacity, 
they show that provision has been made in them, for events of 
which it is not certain whether they will ever occur to them or 
not. When we contemplate the perfect living body — the exact 
fitness of every part for its office, not as an independent agent, 
but as one whose work must be done in due proportion with 
that of many others, is a very marvellous thing ; but it seems 
much more marvellous that, in the embryo, each of these parts 
was made fit for offices and relations that were then future ; 
but surely more marvellous than all it is that each of these, 
when perfect, should still have capacity for right action in 
events that are not only future, but unlikely ; that are indeed 
possible, but are in only so low a degree probable, that if ever 
they happen they will be called accidents — as things not to be 
expected or provided for. 

Let me describe a process of repair, and describe it so simply, 
as it might be to schoolboys. 

All know, or can feel, their Achilles-tendons behind their 
ankles, and that these, strong as they are, are sometimes 
broken by a violent contraction of their muscles. I know not 
how small — how almost infinitely small — the chance is that any 
given man, or quadruped, would ever break this or any other 
part ; but small as the chance may be, ample provision is made 
for its repair. How this is accomplished may be again 
illustrated by diagrams. 

When the tendon in such an animal as a rabbit is divided, its 
pieces separate to nearly an inch apart, the upper piece being 
drawn up by the unrestricted action of its muscles. The 
muscles, no longer fastened by the tendon to the heel-bone, are 
thus rendered useless ; and the object of the reparative process 
must be to form a bond of connexion between the separated 
pieces of -the tendon. 

In the two days following such an injury, all the structures 
between and around the ends of the divided tendon appear 
soaked with a half-liquid substance, the product of inflamma- 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 165 

tion. And thus far we see no plan for uniting the separated 
pieces ; there is no more of this new substance in the line 
between them than there is around them ; and all the new 
substance appears alike. But in the course of two days more, 
we find that fresh material is deposited between the separated 
pieces of the tendons, and that it is firmer than that around, 
and has firm hold on the ends of the separated pieces, and 
connects them, though as yet (if I may so say) only clumsily. 
After this, however, each day finds the connecting substance 
becoming firmer, tougher, and more like the texture of the 
tendon itself. Each day, too, it becomes more defined from 
the surrounding parts ; and this it does, not only because itself 
becomes more exactly shaped, but because they regain their 
natural texture. And observe the distinct design which is 
shown in this contrast. At first, all the parts at and about the 
seat of injury were soaked with a similar material ; but now,, 
that portion of this material, which lay in the place for the 
formation of the connecting bond, has remained and contributed 
to the repair ; but that portion of it which was more remote, 
and could serve no Useful purpose, has been cleared away. 

At the end of a week, in the rabbit, a complete cord-like bond 
of union is formed, and the muscles can act again. By this 
time, too, the bond has gained nearly the perfect texture and 
the toughness of the original tendon. I once tried the strength 
of such a bond of connexion, which had been forming for ten 
days after the division of the Achilles-tendon of a young rabbit. 
Having removed it from the dead body, I suspended weights 
upon it, and, after bearing weights of twenty, thirty, forty, and 
fifty pounds, it was at length broken by a weight of fifty-six 
pounds. But surely the strength it showed was very wonderful, 
if we remember that it was not more than the sixth of an inch 
in its greatest thickness, and that it was wholly formed in ten 
days, in the leg of a rabbit scarcely more than a pound in 
weight. 

I might illustrate the process of repair by instances as perfect 
as these, observed after injuries of many, almost of any, parts. 
And I might, as in the instance of development, magnify its 
excellence by showing it in what we are apt to call trivial 
creatures, or even by showing that, in general, those lower 
species of animals, that have least means of escape or defence 



166 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

from mutilation, appear to be endowed with the most ample 
powers of repair. But time will not permit this, nor yet that 
I should show how many lessons of practical utility might be 
engrafted on the teaching of a process such as this, or how the 
main principles of the surgery of injuries are based on the 
recognition of the natural power of recovery. Nearly its whole 
practice consists in the prevention of any interference with that 
to which there is, in the very nature of the body, as great a 
tendency as there is for the embryo to be developed into the 
perfect creature. Using the facts of the reparative process only 
for the present purpose of showing how physiology might be 
taught as the chief science of designs, I would say that the 
arguments of design, which are here displayed, are such as 
cannot be impugned by the suspicion^ that the events among 
which each living thing is cast have determined its adaptation 
to them ; because the adaptations here noted prove capacities 
for things that are future, and only not impossible. 

I will mention but one more instance of general design, which 
I think should not be omitted in the teaching of physiology to 
whatever class of students : that, namely, of the adaptation 
of animals in their decay ; how, as they do not live, so neither 
do they decay nor die, for themselves alone, but ministering to 
others' good. 

The chief evidence of this is in the provision that the decaying 
parts of animals yield the materials from which the vegetable 
kingdom derives its chief supply of food. In the ordinary 
decomposition of the dead body, many of the products are the 
very materials from which, as they are mingled with the earth 
and atmosphere, each plant takes its food. But it is not alone 
through this decay in death that animals restore to the 
vegetable world the materials which they have, for their own 
food, derived from it. The same rule is fulfilled in the decay 
of life ; i.e. in those changes which occur when the particles of 
the animal body, having served their purpose, or lived their 
full time in it, are then to be cast out as refuse. For in all these 
changes, which are a part of that constant mutation of particles 
through which the body remains, through all the time of 
vigorous life, the same, though continually changing — in all 
these, the material which is passing out, as refuse, gradually 
approximates, in its transition, to the inorganic state of matter. 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 167 

It is so with the carbonic acid and other exhalations from the 
lungs and skin, and with all the class of substances excreted. 
And thus, every form of degeneration or decay, whether in life 
or after death, may be described as a series of changes, through 
which the elements of organic bodies, instead of being on a 
sudden and with violence dispersed, are gradually collected into 
those lower combinations in which they may best rejoin the 
inorganic world ; they are such changes that every creature 
may be said to decay and die and cast out its refuse in the form 
which may best fit it to discharge its share in the economy of 
the world — either by supplying nutriment to other organisms, 
or by taking its right part in the adjustment of the balance held 
between the organic and inorganic masses. 

I have thus endeavoured to fulfil my office, and to show how 
the general teaching of physiology might do good among its 
students. I think its advantages are such as might be appre- 
hended by students of all classes in society. I suppose, too, 
that for all that part of it which can be applied in the main- 
tenance of health the merit of utility would be admitted ; and 
that, in general terms, it would be allowed that the study of 
designs and final causes should be mingled with other studies 
in any scheme of education by which it is proposed that the 
whole mind should be disciplined, and all modes of reasoning 
should be taught. 

But still, the question may be asked, is it possible that 
knowledge such as this, of the methods of design, will rest, with 
any influence, in a mind that must be engrossed in urgent 
business, or in household cares ; harassed, perhaps, in struggles 
against poverty, or dissipated in the luxuries of wealth ? It 
may be very well (some will say) to teach these things to the 
young, but men and women have other works and other 
pleasures to pursue. 

I know all this ; and I have overshot my mark if I have 
Urged any teaching of which the effects would interfere with 
devotion to the necessary works of later life. But I suppose 
that, if any one will watch his thoughts for a few days, or even 
la, few hours, he will find that, however engrossing may be his 
Icares or his pleasures, however earnest his attention to what 
seems his most urgent need, there are yet intermingling trains 



168 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

of thought quite alien from these : trains into which the mind 
falls, it knows not how, but in which it will wander as if resolute 
to refresh itself. Now these must be provided for ; and so it 
must be an object of all education to supply, in early life, those 
studies from which, in later years, may arise reflections that 
may mingle happily with the business thoughts of common 
days ; that may suggest to the reason, or even to the imagina- 
tion, some hidden meaning, some future purpose, some noble 
end, in the things about us. Reflections such as these, being 
interwoven with our common thoughts, may often bring to our 
life a tone of joy, which its general aspect would not wear ; like 
brilliant threads shot through the texture of some sombre 
fabric, giving lustre to its darkness. 

But besides this happy influence of the general impressions 
that might remain in the mind from the early teaching of 
physiology, I claim for it the hope that its principles might 
read to some minds lessons of the truest wisdom. 

The student of Nature's purposes should surely be averse 
from leading a purposeless existence. Watching design in 
everything around him, he could not fail, one would think, to 
reflect often on the purpose of his own existence. And doing 
so, if his mind were imbued with the knowledge of the mutual 
fitness in which all the members of his body, and all the parts 
of the whole organic world, subsist and minister to each other's 
good, he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake 
alone, or that happiness would be found separate from the 
offices of mutual help and of universal good-will. One who is 
conversant with things that have a purpose in the future, 
higher than that which they have yet fulfilled, would nevejj 
think that his own highest destiny is yet achieved. Though 
his place among men might be only like that of a single particle 
• — like that of a single blood-cell of the body — yet would h( 
strive to concur, and take his share, in all progressive good 
Nor would he count that, with his life ended, his purpose woulc 
be attained ; but by teaching, or by record, or by some othaj 
of those means through which, in the history of our race, thing! J 
that in their rudiments seemed trivial have been developed int(| 
great results, he would strive to " achieve at least some useful 
work, the fruit whereof might abide." Conscious of an immorta 
nature, and of desires and capacities for knowledge, whicl 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY 169 

cannot be satisfied in this world, he would be sure that the 
great law of progress, from a lower to a higher state, would not 
be abrogated in the Divine government of that part of him 
which cannot perish, and is not yet perfect. In him, even the 
understanding would be assured that, " as we have borne the 
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the 
heavenly " ; for that is the true lesson of development. 

And because it abounds in lessons such as these, I claim for 
physiology the pre-eminence among all sciences, for the clear 
and full analogies which it displays between truths natural and 
revealed : and I would teach it everywhere ; looking to its 
help, by these analogies, to prove the concord between know- 
ledge and belief, and to mediate in the ever-pending conflict of 
intellect and faith. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF 

ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BRANCH OF 

EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

By W. B. HODGSON, LL.D. 

" Ignorance does not simply deprive us of advantages ; it leads us 
to work our own misery ; it is not merely a vacuum, void of know- 
ledge, but a plenum of positive errors, continually productive of 
unhappiness. This remark was never more apposite than in the case 
of Political Economy."— Samuel Bailey's Discourses, etc., p. 121. 
1852. 

" If a man begins to forget that he is a social being, a member of 
a body, and that the only truths which can avail him anything, the 
only truths which are worthy objects of his philosophical search, are 
those which are equally true for every man, which will equally avail 
every man, which he must proclaim, as far as he can, to every man, 
from the proudest sage to the meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, 
into a lie, and helps forward the dissolution of that society of which 
he is a member." — Rev. C. Kingsley's Alexandria and her Schools, 
L. ii, p. 66. 1854. 

" A man will never be just to others who is not just to himself, 
and the first requisite of that justice is that he should look every 
obligation, every engagement, every duty in the face. This applies 
as much to money as to more serious affairs, and as much to nations 
as to men." — Times, June 6, 1854. 

It was truly said in this room, some weeks ago, by one whose 
departure from London we must all regret — Professor Edward 
Forbes — that " It is the nature of the human mind to desire and\ 
seek a law." The higher desires of man have not been left, any 
more than his lower, without their object and their fulfilment, 
and just as the bodily appetite desires food, while the earth i 
yields stores of nourishment- — as the imagination craves for I 
beauty, and beauty is on every .side, so, responding to man's J 
desire for law, does all Nature bear the impress of law. Not to I 
the ignorant or careless eye, however, does law anywhere I 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 171 

reveal itself. The discovery of its traces is the student's rich 
and ever fresh reward. To men in general, the outward sense 
reports only a number of detached phenomena ; their relations 
become gradually apparent to him only whose mental vision is 
acute enough, and whose gaze is steady enough, to behold 
them. Science, therefore, consists not in the accumulation of 
heterogeneous facts — any more than the random up-piling of 
stones is architecture — but in the detection of the principles 
which correlate facts even the most dissimilar and anomalous, 
and of the order which binds the parts into a whole. Science 
is, in brief, the pursuit of law ; and the history of science is 
the record of the steps by which man in this pursuit rises 
through classifications, of which the last is ever more compre- 
hensive than its predecessors, from the complexity of countless 
individuals to the simplicity of the groups, and from the 
diversity of the many, at least towards the oneness of the 
universal. 

The discoveries, however, which it needed a Newton or a 
Cuvier to make, may be rendered intelligible in their results, if 
not always in their processes, to ordinary understandings ; and 
whether our knowledge be superficial or profound, the belief 
in the omnipresence of law, in at least the physical world, has 
long ago taken its place in the convictions of the least instructed 
man. Let any one, then, who can realize mentally the difference 
between the aspect which the starry heavens bear to the quite 
ignorant beholder, and that which those same heavens present 
to the man most slightly acquainted with the discoveries of 
astronomy, or between the appearances of the vegetable world 
before and after some acquaintance with Vegetable Physiology : 
but who has never thoughtfully considered the phenomena of 
industrial life — let such a one station himself, say, on London 
Bridge, at high tide, and in the busy hour of day ; let him watch 
the ever-flowing streams of human beings, each bound on his 
several errand, — the seemingly endless succession of vehicles, 
with their freight, animate and inanimate ; let him look down 
the river, and observe the number and variety of shipping, 
coming and departing from and to all parts of the world, 
remote or near ; let him observe, as he strolls onwards, the 
shops, and warehouses, and wharves, and arsenals, and docks, 
with their overflowing stores, the almost interminable lines of 



172 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

streets with houses of every size and kind, each tenanted by its 
respective occupants ; • the railway stations from which and to 
which go and come, hourly, thousands of human beings, and 
the produce of the industry of millions of human beings ; the 
electric telegraph, transmitting from town to town — nay, from 
land to land — the outward symbols of thought, with almost the 
proverbial speed of the inward thought itself ; let him consider 
that within the range of a few miles of ground that produces, 
directly, none of the necessaries of life,* are gathered together 
more than 2,000,000 of men, women, and children, at the rate, 
in some parts, of 186,000 to the square mile ; let him ponder 
how it is that all these people are daily fed, and clothed, and 
lodged, — how it is that all these things have been produced 
and are maintained ; let him further consider that this stupen- 
dous spectacle is but a sample of what is going on, with great 
varieties, in so many other regions of the world ; that people 
separated by thousands of miles of land and sea, who never 
saw each other, who, it may be, scarcely know of each other's 
existence, are busily providing for each other's wants, and each 
procuring his own sustenance by ministering to others' neces- 
sities or desires ; — and then let him, without at all losing sight 
of the too obvious evil mixed up with all this, seriously ask 
himself, is this vast field of contemplation the theatre also of 
law, which binds the several parts together ; or is it a mere 
giddy and fortuitous dance of discordant and jostling atoms — 
in a word, a huge weltering chaos, waiting the fiat of some 
Monsieur Cabet or Baboeuf to reduce it to order, and convert 
it into a cosmos, by persuading or compelling the several 
atoms to adopt some cunningly devised principle of so-called 
" organization of labour " ? To this question Economic Science 
professes, at least, to supply the answer ; and if science be the 
pursuit of law, and deserve the title in proportion to its success 
in that pursuit, the claims of Economic Science must be tested 
by the nature of the reply it gives. 

* " Moyhanger, a New-Zealander, who was brought to England, was struck 
with especial wonder, in his visit to London, at the mystery, as it appeared to 
him, how such an immense population could be fed ; as he saw neither cattle 
nor crops. Many of the Londoners, who would perhaps have laughed at the 
savage's admiration, would probably have been found never to have even 
thought of the mechanism which is here at work." — Archbishop Whately, 
Introd. Lect. to Polit. Econ.,L.iv, p. 97. Second Edition. 1832. 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 173 

It may occur to some who hear me that the term law is not 
applicable in the same sense or way to the various classes of 
phenomena which I have casually indicated. In the first — 
the region of astronomy — law suggests the idea of some 
mighty force which irresistibly compels motions on the grandest 
scale ; in the second — the vegetable world — it suggests rather 
a mere principle of arrangement, according to which certain 
unresisting bodies are distributed ; while in the third — the 
Economic World of Man — a vast difference appears between it 
and the other two, inasmuch as we have here a multitude of 
independent intelligences and wills, acting consciously and 
voluntarily from within, in every variety of direction, and often 
in seeming opposition to each other. This difficulty merits a 
consideration, serious if brief. Between the first and second 
the difference is not real, but only apparent. The growth of a 
plant is as wonderful — as grand an exercise of power as the 
revolution of a planet ; and gravitation, as we call it, no more 
than growth, is in itself a power ; both are alike expressions 
and results of that will which is in the universe the only real 
power — the only true cause. Our very word order has a 
double sense — arrangement and command : so natural is it for 
us to identify the one with the other, and to believe that 
arrangement or system exists only by command or law. And, 
in truth, throughout all things, however diverse the special 
phenomena, whether it be the sweep of a comet, or the budding 
of a flower, we can recognize still only a principle or method of 
arrangement as the result of will ; and it is because these are 
so closely and invariably connected in our minds that we are 
so apt to use the word law sometimes for the one, and some- 
times for the other, personifying Law, just as we do Providence 
in ordinary speech. 

The real difficulty, however, lies in the third case, that is, the 
subject immediately before us. Having seen the prima facie 
and analogical improbability of the notion that the economic 
world is lawless, the question arises — in what way does law 
operate amid so many seemingly independent and conflicting 
individualities ? I have no desire, and there is happily no- 
need, for long or subtle disquisition. I would merely submit a 
consideration in itself quite simple, but fraught, if I mistake not, 
with the most important practical results. In the purely 



174 * LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

inorganic world, law operates irresistibly, and command and 
obedience are strictly coincident, co-extensive, and identical. 
In the motions of the heavenly bodies, for example, there is no 
eccentricity in the popular sense of the term ; even the orbit of 
a comet, between whose successive reappearances many decades 
of years and whole generations of men pass away, is absolutely 
known — eclipses with the longest intervals are certainly fore- 
told. The same fact holds in the organized but inanimate 
world, as in the world both inanimate and unorganized. As we 
ascend in the scale, and enter on the animate creation, we find 
a like fixity and uniformity provided for to a very large extent by 
that most marvellous faculty — Instinct, which guides almost 
infallibly the lower orders of animals, which maintains an 
almost precise sameness among the most distant generations, 
and conducts all surely and unconsciously to the end of their 
being. But Man is a being vastly more complex in his nature ; 
he, too, has instincts, but these form a much smaller proportion 
of his whole faculty ; * with all that the lower orders of being 
have, he has much more besides — moral faculties, reason, and 
will, both the latter differing vastly in degree, if not in kind, 
from those of any other creature. The part which he has to 
play in creation is proportionally complex ; and here it is that 
perplexity, and discord, and confusion begin to appear, or at 
least chiefly manifest themselves. It is this surface confusion 
which hides from us the central and pervading Law, and makes 
it difficult to trace its operation. The laws or conditions, 
however, which determine human well-being are really as fixed 
and absolute as are the laws of planetary motion ; but man, 
though so constituted as to desire and seek his well-being, has 
not an infallible perception of that in which it consists, or of 
the means by which this end is to be attained. We find 
throughout, this distinction between man and the lower 
animals. Thus other animals are gifted by nature with the 
clothing suitable to their condition, and it even varies in colour 
and thickness according to the seasons. Man alone has with 
effort to construct what clothing he requires ; so, more or less, 

* " It would seem that it is in the proportion which their instincts an<; 
intelligence bear to each other that the difference between the mind of man anc 
that of other animals chiefly consists. Reasoning is not peculiar to the former 
nor is instinct peculiar to the latter. — Psychological Inquiries, by B. C. B, 
p. 186. London. 1854. 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 175 

is it with food ; so is it with shelter. Is this an inferiority on 
the part of man ? Surely not ; for it is by this very discipline 
that his higher faculties are called into play, and enlarged, and 
strengthened. What appears a penalty is, in reality, a blessing. 
Nature's very provision for the comfort of bird or beast seems, 
at the same time, the sentence of incapacity for improvement. 
Man, however (I speak now of the individual), is progressive, 
being capable of improvement ; and he is stimulated to improve- 
ment because his wants are not supplied for him, but he is 
compelled to supply them for himself, and his desires ever grow 
with the means of their gratification. The whole universe is 
thus, in truth, a great educational organization — a great school, 
— for the calling out and the direction of what powers are in 
man latent. But his progress is not a smooth advance from 
good to better ; his way lies through evils of many kinds — -evils 
attendant inseparably on defective knowledge and ill-regulated 
desires. Law, which in the physical universe operates uni- 
formly, here operates, so to speak, Bi-formly ; the law wears, 
Janus-like, two faces ; but it is one law nevertheless. It 
assumes, however, a twofold sanction, reward for obedience, 
punishment for disobedience, each being but the complement 
and corollary of the other. Thus the pallid face and irritable 
nerves of the sedentary student, the ruddy cheek and iron 
muscles of the ploughman — the trembling hand and bloodshot 
eyes of the drunkard, the steady pulse and clear open counte- 
nance of the temperate man — are the results not of two 
antagonistic laws, but of one law, vindicating its majestic 
universality in the one case not less than in the other. So is it 
with the stagnant and pestilential swamp as contrasted with 
the cultivated plain ; the ruined village with the thriving town ; 
the land of inhabitants few but poor with the land of inhabitants 
many and rich. It is this difference, accordingly, which in the 
human sphere translates Law into Duty, and the Must of the 
Physical World into the Ought of the Moral. Wordsworth, the 
most philosophical of poets, has not failed to detect their 
kinship, however, when, in his noble " Ode to Duty," he says : 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thv footing treads : 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong. 



176 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

Good, then, being the great end of all the established condi- 
tions of our life, evil is, and must ever be, the result of their 
violation. As Paley has said that no nerve has ever been 
discovered whose function lies in the giving of pain, so, in all 
things, pain or evil follows the breach, not the observance, of a 
law. But this very pain or evil is not in its end vindictive, or 
simply punitive ; its aim is reformation for the future, not 
merely punishment for the past. The child burns its finger in 
the candle flame, cuts its hand with a knife, makes a false step 
and falls, and profits all its life through by the lessons it has 
gained. And so the exhaustion of mind or body from over- 
exertion, the headache from intemperance, are Nature's solemn 
warnings, tending powerfully to prevent future transgression. 
Man's successes and his failures are both, in different ways, 
instructive ; both help him in his career. 

But Man is progressive not only as an individual, but as a 
race. Here, still more, is his superiority to all other animals 
apparent. He is, in some measure, the heir of the discoveries, 
the inventions, the thoughts, and the labours, of all foregoing 
time ; and each man has, in some measure, for his helper, the 
results of the accumulated knowledge of the world. But the 
transmission of experience and knowledge from generation to 
generation is the fundamental condition of progress throughout 
the successive ages of the life of mankind. To a large extent, 
of course, we cannot but profit from the labour of our prede- 
cessors ; all those products, and instruments, and agencies, 
which we style " civilization," our roads, our railways, our 
canals, our courts of law, our houses of legislature, and a 
thousand other embodiments of the combined and successive 
efforts of many generations, are our inheritance by birth ; but 
the very guidance and employment of these for their improve- 
ment, or even for their maintenance, require ever increased 
knowledge and intelligence. The higher the civilization that a 
community has attained, the more, not the less, necessary is it 
that its members, as one race succeeds another, should be 
enlightened and informed. No inheritance of industrial pro- 
gress can dispense with individual intelligence and judgment 
any more than the accumulation of books can save from the 
need of learning to read and write. But thousands of human 
beings, born ignorant, are left to repeat unguided the same 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 177 

experiments, and to incur the same failures and penalties as" 
their parents — as their ancestors. Where these stumbled, or 
slipped, and fell, they too stumble, or slip, and fall, rising again 
perhaps, but not uninjured by the fall. Nature teaches, it is 
true, by penalty as well as by reward ; but it is surely wise, as 
far as may be, to anticipate in each case this rough teaching, to 
aid it by rational explanation, and to confine it within safe 
bounds. The world, doubtless, advances in spite of all.* That 
industrial progress is what it is proves that the amount of 
observance of law is, on the whole, largely in excess of its 
violation ; were it otherwise, society would retrograde, and 
humanity would perish. This predominance of good results 
from the very constitution of human nature and of the world, 
by which the individual, working even unconsciously and for 
his own ends, and learning even by failure, achieves a good 
wider than that he contemplates, and by which progress, in 
spite of delay and fluctuation, is maintained alike in the 
individual and the race. But how shall the evil which yet mars 
and deforms our civilization be abated, if not removed, while 
progress is made more rapid, and sure, and equable ? Both 
depend alike on increased observance of law ; and it is by 
diffusing knowledge of its existence and operation that obser- 
vance of law is rendered more general and less precarious. If, 
then, we would convert not only disobedience into obedience, 
but obedience blind, unconscious, and precarious, into obedience 
conscious, intelligent, and habitual, we must teach all to under- 
stand the nature of the laws on which the universal well-being 
depends, and train all in those habits which facilitate and 
secure the observance of those laws.f 

Assuming, then, that in the industrial or economic sphere 
the laws of human well-being are as fixed as in any other, and 
that what measure of well-being we anywhere behold is the 
result of obedience, conscious or unconscious, to those laws, we 
ought next to inquire what those laws are. As a preliminary, 
let us take a hasty survey of the steps by which any people 
ascends from barbarism to civilization, from destitution to 

* " There is this difference between the body politic and the physical frame. 
Life is ' a harp of thousand strings, that dies if one be gone ' ; but the life of 
society is still living and tuneful, though many strings be broken." — Times, 
June 8, 1854. 

f Vide Appendix, p. 200. 



178 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

comfort, from poverty to wealth. From the review alike of 
good and of evil, we shall be able to extract the principles which 
run throughout, and which both good and evil concur to attest. 
In barbarous countries we find men scattered in small numbers 
over wide extent of territory, living by hunting or fishing, or 
both combined ; every man supplies his own wants directly ; 
he makes his own bow and arrows ; he kills a buffalo for 
himself ; with hides stripped and dressed by himself, he con- 
structs his own robe or tent ; he lives from hand to mouth, 
feasting voraciously to-day, then starving till another supply 
of food can be obtained ; ever on the verge of famine, and 
eking out a precarious subsistence by robbery and murder, 
which he calls war. All but the strong perish in early years, 
and the average duration of life is low. If we contemplate the 
pastoral life instead of that of hunting and fishing, still we find 
that large tracts of country are needed for the maintenance of 
few people. If the earth be at all cultivated, it is with the 
rudest implements, and the produce is proportionally scanty. 
So long as each man is entirely occupied in providing for his 
own wants, progress is impossible. So soon, however, as by 
the gradual and slow introduction of better implements, and 
the acquirement of greater skill, agriculture becomes more 
productive, and the labour of one man becomes sufficient for 
the support of more than one, of some, of many ; the first 
condition of progress is realized, and the labour of some or 
many is now set free for other occupations. Food and clothing, 
fuel and shelter, are the first necessaries of life. But instead of 
every man preparing all these for himself directly, instead of 
every man making for himself all that he requires, gradually 
one man begins to construct one article, or set of articles only, 
while another devotes himself to another, with a consequent 
great increase of productiveness in each case, from increased 
skill and economy of time ; in other words, the division of i 
labour is begun. But so soon as the industry of the community 
is thus divided, and that of each thus restricted, as each still 
requires all the articles which before he constructed for himself, 
he can obtain them only from those who employ themselves in 
their production ; and this he can do only by giving some of 
his own product as an equivalent, in other words, by exchange. 
This transaction gives meaning to the term value, which 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 179 

denotes simply the amount of commodities that can be procured 
in exchange for any other commodity. Division of labour and 
exchange are thus simultaneous in their origin. From the 
introduction of exchange, industrial progress gains a fresh life. 
Industry having been thus rendered more productive than 
before, subsistence is now provided for a larger number of 
persons than before. The reward of industry increasing with 
its productiveness, ingenuity is stimulated to the invention of 
improved methods, and of improved instruments called tools, 
or, as they become more complicated and powerful, machines, 
though a machine is in principle only a tool ; and the very 
argument which is good, if good at all, against a steam-plough 
is good against the common plough, or a hoe, or a spade, or a 
stake hardened in the fire. 

Population having meantime increased, the land available 
for production becomes more and more fully appropriated ; and 
as one portion is more fertile, or more advantageously situated 
than another, it becomes more advantageous to pay a portion 
of the produce for the right to cultivate a more productive soil, 
than to cultivate an inferior soil even for nothing ; e.g. to pay 
ten measures of grain for a soil which produces fifty measures, 
than nothing for a soil which produces, say, thirty or thirty-five ; 
and hence arises what we call rent. But, meantime also, the 
productiveness of industry having become ever greater in pro- 
portion to the consumption of its produce, the process of 
accumulation goes on, and the unconsumed results of previous 
labour, which, however various their kinds, we term wealth, 
swell to larger proportions. But this wealth is not equally 
possessed by all ; one man, from superior skill, or intelligence, 
or economy, or other causes, coming to possess more than 
others, while some, it may be, possess none at all. Mere labour, 
however, without the results of foregone labour, embodied in 
some form, can accomplish little ; while the results of foregone 
labour, in whatever form embodied, need fresh labour in order 
to become still more productive. Thus, e.g. a spade is a result 
of past labour ; without it the labourer could accomplish little ; 
and, on the other hand, the spade, without a labourer to wield 
it, would be unproductive. Now, the spade here represents 
that portion of wealth which is devoted to further production, 
and which is called capital. Capital and labour are thus 



180 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

indispensable to each other. They may exist in different hands, 
or in the same ; but they must co-exist, and co-operate. Thus 
— if we suppose them to be in different hands — the owner of 
the spade, whom we may call the capitalist, may undertake to 
give the labourer a fixed compensation for his labour aided by 
the spade (an amount which will more or less exceed, and can 
in no case fall below, what the labourer without the spade can 
earn), reserving for himself any surplus that may arise after 
that labour is paid. In this case the labourer's reward is called 
wages ; the capitalist's reward is called profit. Or the 
capitalist may lend the spade to the labourer for a fixed return 
(which will be somewhat less than, and which cannot exceed, 
the difference in the labourer's productiveness, caused by the 
spade), the labourer claiming as his own all that he can realize 
over and above what he pays. In this case the labourer's 
return, whatever it may be called, is partly wages and partly 
profit, while the capitalist's return is termed interest, or much 
better, usance, an obsolete English word, for it is really what is 
paid for the use of capital in any form. If the capital and 
labour be in the same hands, e.g. if the labourer own the spade 
he uses, the joint return ever consists of the two items here 
discriminated. 

As industry extends and wealth increases, it is early found 
necessary to provide for the security of property ; for the 
suppression of violence and fraud ; and for the settlement of 
disputes that will here and there arise, even without evil 
intention on either side. Hence all the machinery of courts of 
justice, and of government, from its highest to its lowest 
functionary. As these, though not in themselves directly 
producers, are indispensable to production, and exist for the 
welfare of all, they must be maintained at the expense of all ; 
hence comes taxation of various kinds, which it is the business 
of the legislature to impose justly, and in the way least likely 
to fetter industry, and prevent increase of wealth. 

So far as we have hitherto seen, exchanges have as yet been 
effected by direct giving and taking of commodity for com- 
modity, or, as it is termed, barter ; but great and serious 
difficulties attend this system, difficulties ever more deeply felt 
as exchanges multiply and become more various ; the baker 
may not want the shoemaker's shoes, if the latter want hi 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 181 

bread ; but the latter may not want as much bread as equals 
the value of a pair of shoes ; and payment by a half or a third 
of a pair of shoes is impossible. A medium of exchange, 
accordingly, is introduced ; usually the 'precious metals, as they 
are called, the very word implying one of their fitnesses for the 
task — viz. that in a small bulk they contain great value. The 
non-liability to decay ; capability of division without loss ; 
comparative exemption from fluctuations of supply ; and 
facility of recognition, are among their other claims. Exchange, 
thus facilitated by the adoption of a medium which all are 
ready to receive, and by which most minute proportions of 
value may be easily represented, proceeds with vastly increased 
rapidity ; and value being thus measured habitually in money, 
we have the new element of price. Though money in itself is 
but a very small portion of the capital, and still less of the total 
wealth, of a nation, it so habitually represents every kind of 
capital and wealth that it conveniently becomes a synonym 
for both, not, however, without some risk of mental confusion 
and error as the result. 

Exchanges becoming thus continually more frequent and 
complicated, it is found convenient and advantageous, on the 
principle of the division of labour, that a class of men should 
devote themselves to conduct the business of exchange solely, 
the work of production being left to others. By the introduc- 
tion of merchants, who do not themselves produce, a greater 
amount of production is attained, on the whole, than would be 
possible if all both produced and exchanged without their 
intervention. 

But, for facility and frequency of exchange, even at home, 
rapidity, and ease, and safety of communication are indis- 
pensable ; good roads, swift conveyances, canals, and ulti- 
mately railways arise, with their adjuncts of carriers and 
couriers, and post-establishments, and telegraphs of ever 
greater ingenuity and efficiency. 

Exchange, which was at first confined within the limits of 
:>ne country, soon extends to other countries, with an immense 
advantage to all, for all are thus made partakers in the produc- 
tions of each, which are more and more diverse according to 
:heir diversity of climate. Foreign commerce, with all that it 
nvolves of ships, and docks, and warehouses, is the most 

M 



182 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

powerful stimulus to home industry. But exchange, whether 
at home or abroad, is, in all cases, when analysed, simply each 
man's giving something that he wants less, for something else 
that he wants more. 

As geographical knowledge and means of transit are increased, 
numbers pass from one country to another ; from countries 
densely to those less densely peopled ; from countries where 
land is all appropriated to those where it is still unclaimed ; 
from countries where capital and labour are comparatively 
unproductive to those where both are more amply rewarded ; 
new fields being thus perpetually opened up for human industry, 
and increased enjoyment provided by fresh and ever augmented 
interchange, both for those who go and for those who stay. 

But long ere this, as yet the highest, stage of progress has! 
been reached, the precious metals themselves have been found 
incompetent to discharge the full duty of exchange ; and paper 
money, or duly vouched promises to pay money, is introduced 
with an ever more complicated machinery of bank-notes and 
bills of exchange, for the management of which class of transac-| 
tions a still further division of labour is introduced by meajnsj 
of bankers, bill-brokers, and the other agents by whom what' 
we call comprehensively credit is carried on. 

But life and property are subject to contingencies which 
involve serious loss, and which it is impossible always to 
prevent. It is discovered that the evil results to individuals, 
which would be ruinous to one, may, by combination, be distri- 
buted over many. Hence insurances against fire, against death, 
against disaster at sea, against hail-storms and diseases among 
cattle, against railway accidents, and even against fraud on the 
part of clerks or other assistants, all of which are based on 
calculation of averages, this again being based on the conviction 
that a certain regularity prevails among events even the most 
anomalous and irregular. 

And thus, step by step, by a strictly natural course, does thd 
work of industrial progress go on, till we witness its gigantic 
results in our own time and our own land — results of which thl 
great Crystal Palace (the opening of which was not inaptly! 
coincident with the day fixed for this exposition of the principles | 
whose triumph it exemplifies) may be justly regarded as the 
crowning and most, various illustration — raised, as it has been, 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 183 

by voluntary combination, on strictly economic grounds, and 
embracing within itself, in one vast space, examples of the 
productions of the labour, the ingenuity, the fancy, the skill, 
the science of all ages and of every land. 

In this inevitably brief and incomplete sketch of the industrial 
progress of the world, not only has much been omitted, but it 
is to be observed that the steps do not always follow each other 
in precisely the same order, and that much that is here recorded, 
perforce, successively, takes place simultaneously. It is not 
possible here or now to extract from even this most hasty 
sketch the merely theoretic principles which it involves. This 
is the business of a long course of lectures, and it is not, besides, 
my purpose to expound Economic Science itself, any further 
than may be indispensable to show its importance as a branch 
of general instruction. Let us rather look at some of the great 
practical lessons that may be deduced from it for the guidance 
of individual conduct. 

Everything, then, that we or others possess, is more or less 
the result of human, that is, of individual, industry. It is 
observable that not where nature itself is most prolific is human 
labour the most productive ; so true is it that necessity is the 
mother of invention and of industry as well. Truly has 
Rousseau remarked, " In the south, men consume little " (he 
might have said produce little) " on a grateful soil ; in the 
north, men consume much " (and of course produce much) " on 
a soil ungrateful." * Where man has most done for him, he 
often does least for himself ; and though his labours must be 
seconded by the productiveness of Nature, the latter is really 
more dependent on the former than the former on the latter. 
Now this law holds true of the future as well as of the present 
or the past. Every human being must subsist on the produce 
of his own industry, or on that of some one else. Industry, 
then, is the first duty of him who would be honourably 
independent. 

But it is not by present labour, any more than by future, 
that any man is really sustained. While the crop is growing, 
for example, the labourer is fed by the grain of former harvests. 
Now, if the produce of labour were consumed as fast as it is 
produced, not only would progress be impossible, but life itself 
* Emile, Liv. I. 



184 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

would be endangered, and would ere long cease. Hence the 
duty of what is called, in its narrower sense, economy, or the 
frugal and prudent consumption of what has been produced. 
Disasters, too, will arise, which no human wisdom can prevent, 
but against whose consequences it may provide. The very 
progress of industry involves displacement of labour, though it 
is not true that labour is so superseded, as the phrase is. The 
invention of printing threw amanuenses out of their old employ- 
ment, though it soon employed a thousand men instead of one. 
During all such transitions, it is only by previous savings that 
those thus affected can be maintained till they can adapt 
themselves to the change. Again, the early years of every 
human being are incapable of industrial effort, and the child 
must be maintained by the previous labour of others. Upon 
whom this duty fairly falls, whether on some abstraction that 
we call the State, or society, or on the parents of the child to 
whom his being is due, is a question which needs less to be 
asked than merely to be suggested here. Again, the years of 
labour are limited ; the evening of that night approaches in 
which no man can work, and here is another call on the proceeds 
of past industry. The very old, as well as the very young, must 
be supported alike by foregone labour ; in the case of the young, 
it must be by the labour of others ; in the case of the old, it 
must be either by their own previous labour, or by that of their 
children now grown up, or by that of society at large — which 
way is best is surely not doubtful. During the years of active 
life itself, sickness will sometimes invade, throwing men often 
for long periods on the resources of the past. Hence the 
necessity of forethought as regards equally the future of others 
whom affection and duty alike commend to our care and our 
own, when the days of decay and weakness shall arrive. Now, 
forethought involves judgment, and diligence, and self-denial. 
( 1 ) As to j udgment. Earnings may be saved, but if injudiciously 
invested, they may be lost. To take a simple case — hoarded 
potatoes are a more precarious economy than hoarded grain ; 
and so throughout where savings are invested through banks, 
or building societies, or railway shares, or in any other way. 
The division of labour itself calls for ever fresh exercise of 
judgment. So long as each man produces all that he wants for 
himself, he knows precisely what he wants, and how much ; 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 185 

but so soon as labour is divided, each man produces not what 
he wants himself, but what others want, or are supposed to 
want. If, then, any one produce by mistake articles which 
others do not want, or of a quality or to an extent at variance 
with the demand, he suffers serious loss, it may be ruin. (2) As 
to diligence. Without this, labour is little different from 
idleness. But mere labour, however diligent, can accomplish 
little unless guided by intelligence, for which, as the demands 
of society increase, there is an ever louder call. Knowledge, 
then, is indispensable to the attainment of any beyond the 
lowest results of industry. The more we know of the nature 
of that on which, and by which, and in which, and for which, 
we work, the more likely, nay certain, is our work to turn to 
good account. This knowledge, when embodied in practice 
and confirmed by it, becomes skill. The very tools and 
machines which some fancy supersede human labour and skill 
are the results of both, and they render the former infinitely 
more productive, and call for ever more of the latter for their 
improvement, if not for their actual guidance. (3) As regards 
self-denial. One of its most important forms is temperance, 
without which labour, especially of the higher kinds, is pre- 
carious, it may be impossible. As society advances, the 
relations of man to his fellows become more and more numerous 
and complex. Credit, as it is well called, holds a larger and 
larger place, and reliance on each other's faith becomes more 
and more important. Honesty, accordingly, whether in its 
lower forms, such as punctuality, or in its higher, to which we 
give the name integrity, is thus an indispensable condition of 
human progress. Were the exceptions to this condition to 
become much more frequent, the bonds of human society would 
be proportionally loosened, and civilization would go backward. 
In scarcely a subordinate degree are civility, courtesy, mutual 
forbearance, and willingness to oblige, necessary to oil the 
wheels of the social machine, which, without these, would move 
but slowly and creakingly along. These things we all need in 
our own case ; and to be received they must be given. 

It is only in so far as all these qualities of diligence, and 
economy, and skill, and forethought, and intelligence, and 
temperance, and integrity, and courtesy, have been manifested 
that wealth has been created, and that society in any age or 



186 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

country has advanced. It is just in so far as these have been 
neglected that poverty, and misery, and evil, of every kind, 
abound. Such are some of the chief practical lessons of 
Economic Science when rightly studied. 

And will any one ask, " Are these mere truisms the boasted 
results of economic teaching ? " In reply, much may be said. 
What is a truism to one mind, say to all here, may be really 
unknown to thousands beyond these walls. In such subjects, 
again, the profoundest truth is ever the simplest. It is its very 
simplicity that blinds us to its value and comprehensiveness. 
Further, we are so easily familiarized with the mere names of 
duties, and so accustomed to assent with the lips to their 
obligation, that we neglect to consider either their basis or their 
practical working. We go on daily assenting to truths we daily 
violate ; it is not uncommon to lecture on ventilation in rooms 
whose atmosphere is stifling ; to eulogize economy in the midst 
of reckless expenditure ; and health is sometimes injured by 
very diligence in the study of its laws. What men all want is 
not merely the discovery and promulgation of new truth, 
however useful, but the freshening up of old truths long ago 
admitted. The coins which we carry about with us, and which 
pass continually from hand to hand, have had the sharpness of 
their edges worn off, their legend all but effaced. We need to 
have them cast anew into the mint of thought, and re-stamped 
with their original " image and superscription." Rote-teaching 
is pernicious in morals not less than in merely intellectual 
matters. The explanation of a law, its demonstration, should 
ever go hand in hand with its inculcation. For the sake of 
those who may say, or at least think, " All this we knew long 
ago," let me use an illustration from the quite parallel case of 
Physiology. In my younger days I was accustomed to hear 
much vague talk about air and exercise ; on all hands I heard 
that nothing was so good as exercise and fresh air. Well, so 
long as the restless activity of boyhood lasted, there was less 
need for instruction on this head ; boys take fresh air and 
exercise in blind obedience to a blessed law of their nature. 
But when youth came on, and intellect became more mature, 
and books began to push cricket from its throne, all the rumour 
about air and exercise was quite inoperative to prevent long 
days and late nights of sedentary position, of confinement in 






THF STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 187 

close room , of hard work of the brain, while the circulation of 
the blood /as impeded, the lungs laboured, the muscles ost 
their energy, and the skin its freedom of transpiration and its 
vigour to resist agencies from without. When, like most of 
you, I listened in delight to the beautiful expositions of my 
immediate predecessor, perhaps I was not alone in thinking 
that, had we all been taught in early life the economy of the 
lungs, and heart, and blood-vessels, and brain — had we been 
shown that the blood which nourishes the body must be purified 
by frequent contact with the outer air ; that for this purpose it 
passes frequently through the lungs, receiving from the air fresh 
life, while its impurities are thrown off ; that in the process of 
breathing the air is rapidly deteriorated and rendered unfit to 
sustain life, constant renovation being thus required ; that by 
muscular compression consequent on exercise the circulation 
is quickened, as well as the breathing, so that the blood is thus 
more rapidly purified, the effete particles of matter are more 
quickly removed, and our bodies in truth more frequently and 
healthfully renewed — we should many of us have been spared 
much suffering and much loss of power arising necessarily from 
violation of the vital laws. And so with Economic Science. 
It is of no avail to repeat by rote phrases about industry, and 
temperance, and frugality, etc. The results of the observance 
and of the violation of those duties, as exemplified in the actual 
working of social life, must be clearly shown, and so enforced 
that the knowledge shall be wrought into the very tissue and 
substance of the mind, never to perish while life lasts, so that 
all things shall be brought to the test of the principles thus 
incorporated with the intellect itself. Further, in the case of 
both sciences alike, mere teaching, or addressing of the intellect, 
even if that be convinced, is not all, or enough. Training must 
accompany teaching ; the formation of habits must go on with 
the clearing of the intellectual vision. I speak not of schools 
alone, or of homes alone ; in both must the embryo man be 
accustomed, as well as told, to do what is right. He who has 
once learned by habit the delight and the advantage of daily 
ablution of the -whole body, or of daily exercise in all weathers, 
in the open air, will not easily abandon or interrupt either of 
these habits. And so with industry and the rest. Every fresh 
act of obedience is no longer, as it were, the effort of a distinct 



188 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

volition, but an almost automatic repetition of an act first 
commanded by reason. This conversion of the voluntary into 
the spontaneous is the true guarantee for perseverance in any 
line of conduct, the excellence of which has been already 
recognized by the understanding. 

The analogy between the Physiological and the Economic 
Sciences, both in their nature and in their present position, 
seems to me to hold throughout. Thus ignorance does not in 
either confer any exemption from the evils attending the breach 
of any law, however it may be admitted in extenuation at the 
bar of human justice. The child who takes arsenic for sugar, 
dies as surely as the wilful suicide. The youth launched on this 
busy world without any of the knowledge here indicated, finds 
Greek iambics, and even conic sections, of no guidance in its 
industrial relations, and he suffers and fails accordingly. What 
is the inference ? That ignorance should be removed, and 
evil prevented, by early teaching, rather than left to the bitter 
regimen of experience. Coleridge has finely compared experi- 
ence to the stern lights of a Vessel, which illuminate only the 
track over which it has passed. It is for us rather to fix the 
light of knowledge on the prow, to illumine the course which 
the ship has yet to take. It would surely be a great gain were 
all offences against economic law reduced to the category of 
wilful disobedience, in spite of knowledge ; for such, I firmly 
believe, are, especially at the outset, vastly the minority. 

Again : Health, much as it depends on individual observance 
of its laws, is greatly dependent on their observance by others 
also. The profligate parent transmits a feeble and sickly 
organization to his child ; just as opposite conduct tends to 
the opposite result. The pestilence which foulness in one part 
of a city has bred, extends to other parts ; and the consequences 
of the offence spread far beyond the original offender. So, 
economically, does each man suffer for others' transgressions 
besides his own. The idleness, and wastefulness, and intem- 
perance of parents entail hunger, and raggedness, and every 
form of misery on the unhappy children. The industrious, 
and provident, and honest members of the community are 
stinted in their means for the support of the idle, and improvi- 
dent, and dishonest, and for their own protection against the 
depredations of those who seek to live by others' labour rather 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 189 

than their own. No law of our existence is more sure than 
this. It is idle to cavil or complain. Let us rather see how the 
recognition of this law should affect us. What is the practical 
inference ? It is that the interests of humanity are one ; that 
throughout mankind there is, in French phrase, a solidarity, 
which renders each responsible, in some measure, for the rest. 
The policy of selfish isolation is, therefore, vain, as well as 
sinful. We suffer from our neglect of the well-being of our 
fellow-men. The gaol fever, which the gross negligence of 
prison authorities produced in former days, slew the juryman 
in the box, and even the judge upon the bench. And it is not 
. in purse alone, or even chiefly, that we suffer from the existence 
of the destitute or the depraved. The great mountain of 
human evil throws its dark, cold shadow on every one of us ; in 
such an atmosphere our own moral nature droops and pines ; 
and just proportioned to the mental elasticity which attends 
every successful effort to spread good around us is the numbing 
and hardening pressure of that great mass of vice and misery 
which we feel ourselves impotent to relieve. 

One more analogy I would briefly note. We know how 
common quack medicines are. Why is this ? Because, through 
ignorance of physiological laws, people are silly enough to 
believe that any nostrum can exist potent to repair, as by a 
magic 'spell or incantation, the evil results of their own neglect 
of health and its conditions. To such people, talk about air 
and exercise, and washing, and regular diet, and early hours, 
and temperance, and alternation of labour and rest, is very 
uninteresting and commonplace. To a similar class of persons 
discourse on diligence and economy, and forethought and 
integrity, is very dull. " What is the use of all your chemistry," 
said the old lady, " if you cannot take the stain out of my silk 
gown ? " And by tests not less narrow and erroneous are the 
teachings of science, whether economical or physiological, often 
tried. But a change is coming over the public estimate of the 
latter, at least in this respect. Prevention is being ever more 
thought of than cure ; or, in technical phrase, the 'prophylactic 
claims, and now receives, more attention than the therapeutic 
portion of the physician's art. Pure water, and fresh air and 
light are now, almost for the first time, really recognized as the 
fundamental and indispensable conditions of health ; and baths, 



190 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

and drains, and ventilators, and wash-houses, are fast encroach- 
ing on the domain of the blister and the lancet, the pill and the 
black draught. Now, what systems of the treatment of disease 
are to Sanitary Physiology, Poor-laws and Charitable Institu- 
tions and Criminal Legislation are to Economic Science. It 
aims at preventing the evils which those seek to deal with as 
they arise. The attempt may never quite succeed ; but its 
success will be exactly proportioned to the vigour and unanimity 
with which it is made. It seeks to treat the source of the 
disease, rather than the mere symptoms. It is only as the 
former is removed that the latter will disappear. By all means 
let no palliative be neglected in the meantime, but let no cure 
be expected therefrom. Efforts to perfect systems of poor-laws, 
or criminal laws, however excellent or useful, must be abortive, 
because the very existence of the evils which these address is 
abnormal ; and it is for the removal of these wens and blotches 
on the social system that we must strive, not for their mere 
abatement by typical applications, or the rendering of them 
symmetrical and trim. Wisdom and Benevolence here meet, 
and are at one.* 

Yet persons are not wanting who meet our desire that 
Economic Science should be taught to all, and especially to the 
young, by the cry that " it tends to make men selfish." In 
reply, I will not content myself with saying, in the words of 
Shakespeare, " Self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting." 
I go much further, and assert that this teaching, if properly 
conducted, has precisely the opposite tendency. Its great 
purpose is to show how the community is enriched by the 
industry of the individual, and how the value of individual 
industry is measured by its result in enriching the community. 
It wholly disowns and condemns every mode of enriching the 
individual at the general expense, or even without the general 
advantage. Thus, the merchant who brings a commodity, say 
tea, from a country where it is cheap to one where it is dear, 
and gains a profit by the transaction, fulfils the conditions of 
Economic Science. He serves at once the community in which 
he lives by bringing an article from a place where it is less, to 
a place where it is more, wanted ; and the community with 

* In the text I have merely pointed out analogy. Here let me hint at depen- 
dence. Is not the economic difficulty the main obstacle to sanitary arrangements ? 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 191 

which he trades by giving them in exchange for the article they 
sell something that they value more. But the man who 
enriches himself at the gaming-table, or by other means more 
or less resembling the picking of pockets, does injury, not service, 
to the community. He is wholly out of the pale of Economic 
Science ; he may be a chevalier ^Industrie, in the French sense, 
but Economic Science disowns his industry, and condemns him 
as a wasteful consumer of what others have produced. It 
teaches every man to look on himself as a portion of society, 
and widens, not narrows, his views of his own calling. 

And here I cannot but express my deep regret that one to 
whom we all owe, and to whom we all pay, so much gratitude, 
and affection, and admiration, for all he has written and done 
in the cause of good — I mean Mr. Charles Dickens — should have 
lent his great genius and name to the discrediting of the subject 
whose claims I now advocate. Much as I am grieved, however, 
I am not much surprised, for men of purely literary culture, 
with keen and kindly sympathies which range them on what 
seems the side of the poor and weak against the rich and 
strong, and, on the other hand, with refined tastes, which are 
shocked by the insolence of success and the ostentation incident 
to newly acquired wealth, are ever most apt to fall into the 
mistaken estimate of this subject which marks most that has 
yet appeared of his new tale, Hard Times. Of wilful misrepre- 
sentation we know him to be incapable ; not the less is the 
misrepresentation to be deplored. We have heard of a young 
lady who compromised between her desire to have a portrait 
of her lover, and her fear lest her parents should discover her 
attachment, by having the portrait painted very unlike. What 
love did in the case of this young lady, aversion has done in 
the case of Mr. Dickens, who has made the portrait so unlike 
that the best friends of the original cannot detect the resem- 
blance. His descriptions are just as like to real Economic 
Science as " statistics " are to " stutterings," two words which 
he makes one of his characters not very naturally confound. 
He who misrepresents what he ridicules, does, in truth, not 
ridicule what he misrepresents. Of the lad Bitzer, he says, in 
No. 218 of Household Words : 

Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a right 
of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had asserted that 



192 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that 
she had been shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that 
he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him : first, because 
all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperize the recipient ; and, secondly, 
because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to 
buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and to sell it for as much as he could 
possibly get ; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this 
is comprised the whole duty of man— not a part of man's duty, but the whole. 
—(p. 335.) 

Here Economic Science, which so strongly enforces parental 
duty, is given out as discouraging its moral if not economic 
correlative — filial duty. But where do economists represent 
this, maxim as the whole duty of man ? Their business is to 
treat of man in his industrial capacity and relations ; they do 
not presume to deal with his other capacities and relations, 
except by showing what must be done in their sphere to enable 
any duties whatever to be discharged. Thus it shows simply 
that without the exercise of qualities that need not be here 
named again, man cannot support those dependent on him, or 
even himself. If it do not establish the obligation, it shows 
how only the obligation can be fulfilled. 

Let me once more recur to physiology for an illustration. 
The duty of preserving one's own life and health will not be 
gainsaid. Physiology enforces this duty by showing how it 
must be fulfilled. But, if one's mother were to fall into the 
sea, are we to be told that physiology forbids the son to leap 
into the waves, and even peril his own health and life in the 
effort to save her who gave him birth ? Physiology does not 
command this, it is true ; this is not its sphere ; but this, at 
least, it does : it teaches and trains to the fullest development 
of strength and activity, that so they may be equal for every 
exigency — even one so terrible as this ; and so precisely with 
Economic Science. 

Again, we are told it discourages marriage : 

" Look at me, ma'am," says Mr. Bitzer. " I don't want a wife and family. 
Why should they ? " 

" Because they are improvident," said Mrs. Sparsit. 

" Yes, ma'am, that's where it is. If they were more provident, and less 
perverse, ma'am, what would they do ? They would say, ' While my hat covers 
my family,' or ' While my bonnet covers my family,' as the case might be, 
ma'am, ' I have only one to feed, and that's the person I most like to feed.' " 
—{p. 336.) 

Does this mean that men or women ought to rush blindly into 

the position of parents, without thinking or caring whether 



1 






THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 193 

their children can be supported by their industry, or must be a 
burden on that of society at large ? If not, on what ground is 
prudent hesitation, in assuming the most solemn of all human 
responsibilities, a subject for ridicule and censure ? Is the 
condition of the people to be improved by greater or by less 
laxity in this respect ? 

But not merely are we told that this teaching (which, by the 
way, scarcely exists in any but a very few schools), tends to 
selfishness, and the merging of the community in the individual ; 
it has, it seems, also, a quite opposite tendency to merge the 
individual in the community, by accustoming the mind to dwell 
wholly on averages. Thus, if in a city of a million of inhabitants 
twenty-five are starved to death annually in the streets, or if 
of 100,000 persons who go to sea 500 are drowned, or burned 
to death, we are led to believe that Economic Science disregards 
these miseries, because they are exceptional, and because the 
average is so greatly the other way ! Now, though in com- 
parison of two countries, or two periods, such averages are 
indispensable, Economic Science practically teaches everywhere 
to analyse the collective result into its constituent elements — 
in a word, to individualize. It teaches, for example, that every 
brick, and stone, and beam of this building, of this street, of 
this city, has been laid by some individual pair of hands ; and 
it urges every man to work for himself, and to render his own 
industry ever more productive, surely not to rest in idle con- 
templation of the average of industry throughout the land. It is 
his duty to swell, not to reduce that average. So with prosperity. 
I am quite unable to see what tendency the knowledge of that 
average can have to discourage the effort to increase it. Besides, 
it is a fundamental error to confound mere statistics with Economic 
Science, which deals with facts only to establish their connexions 
by way of cause and effect, and to interpret them by law. 

But were it otherwise, with what justice can economic 
instruction be charged with destroying imagination, by the 
utilitarian teaching of " stubborn facts." Why should either 
exclude the other ? I can see no incompatibility between the 
two.* By all means let us have poetry, but first let us have 

* On this score, I have personally no misgivings. Seventeen years ago, I 
delivered and published a lecture, in which I urged the exercise of the imagina- 
tion, or aesthetic culture, in the youthful training of all classes. My convictions 
are at least as strong now as fchey were then. 



194 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

our daily bread, even though man is not fed by that alone. It 
is the Poet Rogers who says, in a note to his poem on Italy, 
" To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes 
on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, 
and the fields well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may 
say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed." 
Destitution must be removed for the very sake of the higher 
culture. If we would have the tree fling its branches widely 
and freely into the upper air, its roots must be fixed deeply 
and firmly in the earth. But enough of this subject, on which 
I have entered with pain, and only from a strong sense of duty. 
The public mind, alas, is not enlightened enough to render 
such writing harmless. 

Hitherto I have spoken only of those great principles, and 
the duties flowing therefrom, which pervade the whole subject. 
But if these principles are the most comprehensive, there are 
very many others which, in the practical affairs of life, it is 
most important thoroughly to understand, and which it is the 
peculiar business of Economic Science to expound. It is an 
error to suppose that in matters touching men's " business and 
bosoms," even though of daily and hourly recurrence, instruc- 
tion is not needed, and that " common sense " is a sufficient 
guide. Alas, common sense is widely different from proper 
sense. It is precisely in these subjects that error most exten- 
sively prevails, and that it is most pernicious where it does 
prevail. In matters far removed from ordinary life and 
experience, pure ignorance is possible, perhaps ; and, in 
comparison, little mischievous. But in those which concern 
us all and at all times, it is alike impossible to be purely ignorant 
and to be ignorant with impunity. If the mind have not right 
notions developed at first, it will certainly have wrong ones. 
Hence we may say of knowledge what Sheridan Knowles says 
of virtue : " Plant virtue early ! Give the flower the chance 
you suffer to the weed ! " 

The minds of most men are a congeries of maxims, and 
notions, and opinions, and rules, and theories picked up here 
and there, now and then, some sound, others unsound, each 
often quite inconsistent with the rest, but which are to them 
identified with the whole body of truth, and which are the 
standard by which they try all things. This fact explains a 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 195 

remark in a recent school report, that it is far easier to make 
this science intelligible to children than to their parents ; — no 
doubt, just as it is easier to build on an unoccupied ground 
than on one overspread by ruins. And so, not only is it 
possible to teach this subject to the young ; but it is to the 
young that we must teach it, if we would have this teaching 
most effective for good. For further evidence of the general 
need for this kind of instruction it suffices to look around us, 
and test some of the opinions prevalent lately or even now. 
And here there is much of interest that might be said, did 
time permit, of still prevailing errors regarding strikes, and 
machinery, and wages, and population, and protection, and 
taxation, and expenditure, and competition, and much more 
besides. But into this field my limits forbid me even to enter. 
Let me, however, refer you to a most admirable series of lessons 
on The Phenomena of Industrial Life, and the Conditions of 
Industrial Success,* which has recently appeared under the 
editorship of that zealous educationist, the Dean of Hereford. 
The appearance of this book, and the recognition of this subject 
in the last Report of the National School Society, are cheering 
signs that the omissions of past ages in our school systems on 
this head are not destined much longer to continue. 

The programme of this lecture speaks of the importance of 
Economic Science to all classes. It would be a serious error to 
suppose that its advantage is confined wholly, or even chiefly, 
to those who depend on daily labour for daily bread. Even 
were it so, in the midst of frequent and rapid changes of position, 
the rich man becoming poor, as well as the poor man becoming 
rich, this kind of teaching would still be important for all 
classes. But the capitalist not less, it may be said even more, 
than the labourer, needs instruction. He has been styled the 
captain of industry ; it is for him to marshal, and equip, and 
organize, and pay its forces, and to guide their march. Any 
mistake on his part must be widely injurious. The wise 
employment of capital is a most momentous question ; for it 
determines the direction of the industry of millions, and affects 
the prosperity of all coming time. From the class of the rich, 
too, are our legislators chiefly chosen. To them this kind of 
knowledge is important just in proportion as, in their case, 
* Price 2s. Groombridge, Paternoster Row. 



196 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

ignorance or error is most pernicious. Of the aristocracy of 
our day, were old Burton living now, he would scarcely say 
what he said of those of his own time : " They are like our 
modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a 
single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour." * 
The contagion of industry has spread to them ; and idleness is 
less than ever confounded with nobility. But there is ample 
room for further progress. If wealth, even economically 
considered, involve increased responsibility, it calls the more 
loudly for enlightenment and guidance. 

Again, on the side of expenditure, or consumption, does this 
subject especially concern the rich. As supply ever follows 
demand, it is by this that production is mainly guided. Shall 
it run in the direction of sensuality and self-indulgence, or shall 
it flow in better and more useful channels ? Memorable are the 
words of Lord Byron in his later days in Greece : 

The mechanics and working classes who can maintain their families are, in 
my opinion, the happiest body of men. Poverty is wretchedness ; but it is 
perhaps to be preferred to the heartless, unmeaning dissipation of the higher 
orders. I am thankful I am now entirely clear of this, and my resolution to 
remain clear of it for the rest of my life is immutable. | 

At this most suggestive topic I can barely hint. Much beside 
I am forced wholly to omit. But I must not pass in total 
silence the claims of this subject on the attention of the other 
sex. Fortunately, little needs be said within this Institution, 
of whose audience at lectures on every subject ladies form 
perhaps not the smallest, and certainly not the least attentive 
portion. Surely I shall not be told that a superficial sketch, 
such as mine, is for them unobjectionable, but that the serious 
study of the science is, in their case, to be discountenanced. If 
any kind of knowledge can do harm to any living being, it is 
just this very superficial knowledge. It is like the twilight 
which, holding of day on the one hand, and of night on the 
other, mocks the senses with distorted appearances which 
thicker darkness would hide, but which a broader daylight 
would dispel. In truth, women have a special interest in this 
subject. The part they play in industrial pursuits depends 
much on conventional circumstances, and varies in various 

* Anatomy of Melancholy. 

t Last Days of Lord Byron, by W. Paeey, p. 205. 1825. 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 197 

countries ; but in all, their influence in the region of expenditure 
is vastly great. Who shall say how deeply the welfare of 
families and of society at large is involved in this ? Again, the 
domain of charity is peculiarly feminine ; and the benevolent 
impulse, ever so ready to spring up, needs to be guided to the 
prevention, rather than to the relief, or what is too often, in 
fitter phrase, the indirect increase of misery. Well does 
Thomas Carlyle (no friend of the dismal science, as he loves to 
call it), in his quaint, odd way, exclaim : 

What a reflection it is that we cannot bestow on an unworthy man any 
particle of our benevolence, our patronage, or whatever resource is ours — 
without withdrawing it, and all that will grow of it, from one worthy, to whom 
it of right belongs ! We cannot, I say ; impossible ; it is the eternal law of 
things. Incompetent Duncan M'Pastehorn, the hapless incompetent mortal to 
whom I give the cobbling of my boots — and cannot find in my heart to refuse 
it, the poor drunken wretch having a wife and ten children ; he withdraws the 
job from sober, plainly competent and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally 
short of work, too ; discourages Sparrowbill ; teaches him that he, too, may as 
well drink and loiter and bungle ; that this is not a scene for merit and demerit 
at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and incompetent cobbling of every 
description — clearly tending to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill ! What harm had 
Sparrowbill done me that I should so help to ruin him ? And I couldn't save 
the insalvable Mr. Pastehorn : I merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here 
and there a half-crown, which he oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill also 
is drinking ! * 

Between the Lady Bountiful of olden times, with her perio- 
dical distributions of coals and blankets, and simples and 
cowslip wine, who regarded the poor as her pets, her peculiar 
luxury, of which, did they, cease to be mendicants, she would 
be cruelly deprived — and the Mrs. Jellyby, whose long-ranged 
benevolence shoots in a parabolic curve far over what is near, 
to descend on what is remote, hurrying past and above St. Giles 
or Whitechapel, and exploding on " Borrioboola Gha " ; be- 
tween these widely distinct forms of what is called in both alike 
Charity, there is room and there is need for women of judgment 
as clear as their sympathy is earnest, who can think for them- 
selves, as well as feel for others ; who shall not so do good that 
evil may come, but rather help the feeble to self-help, and, 
while they raise the fallen, look mainly to " forestalling " others 
" ere they come to fall." 

Up to this point I have spoken solely of one class of advan- 
tages attending the teaching of Economic Science. But, as you 

* Model Prisons, p. 24 ; Latter -Day Pamphlets, No. 2. 



198 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

have been told oftener than once during this course, the teaching 
of every branch of knowledge has, in different degrees, two 
sorts of advantage : (1) in increasing man's outward resources ; 
(2) as a means of mental discipline and inward culture. Of 
the second of these advantages I can now say but little. It is 
wholly unimportant to discuss the comparative claims of 
different subjects in this respect. The difference among them 
is, perhaps, rather of kind than of degree. Mathematics 
discipline one set of powers, metaphysics another ; or in so far 
as both exercise the same powers, it is in different ways. I 
claim no monopoly, I arrogate no superiority. I simply assert 
the educational value of this subject, without prejudice to any 
other, and all the more strongly, because it has been and is so 
sadly neglected. Surely, those subjects which have the most 
direct and powerful bearing on human well-being, and which 
treat of some of the most important relations between man and 
man, cannot be educationally less efficient than other studies 
which concern man less closely and directly. And I leave it 
to you who have heard even this most imperfect and hurried 
exposition, to judge whether it can fail to be a most improving 
mental exercise to sift such questions as the relations and laws 
of price, of capital and labour, and wages and profits, and 
interest and rent, and to trace to their origin, and follow to 
their results, the fluctuations affecting all these in our own and 
other countries, in our own and other times. As regards the 
other sex, on this ground, at least, there can be no doubt, even 
if the former admitted of hesitation. To women and to men, 
this discipline is alike valuable : for women it is even more 
necessary ; for men are inevitably brought more into contact 
with the world and its affairs, and so have the defects of their 
early teaching in part corrected. It is well, at the same time 
that the understanding is exercised, to foster an interest in 
human welfare by an enlarged comprehension of its conditions. 
We hear little now of the policy or propriety of confining 
woman's studies to superficial accomplishment. It were an 
error, scarcely less serious, to confine them to inquiries which 
leave the individual isolated from the race. 

Let me not, in conclusion, be supposed to ignore, because I 
would not invade, other, and (by common consent) the most 
sacred grounds on which the moral aspects of this subject may 



THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 199 

be viewed. Let the duties on which human welfare, even 
industrially considered, is dependent, be enforced elsewhere, by- 
reasons too high for discussion here. But surely this ground, 
at least, is in common to religious sects of every variety of 
creed and name. Surely it is a solemn and cogent considera- 
tion that the very fabric of our social being is held together by 
moral laws, and that the man who violates them outlaws 
himself, as it were, from the social domain, and rouses into 
armed hostility a thousand agencies which might and would 
otherwise fight upon his side. Not only the profligate, the 
gambler, the swindler, and the drunkard, but the idle, the 
reckless, the unpunctual, the procrastinating, find here a bitter 
but wholesome condemnation ; and the very science which is 
ignorantly charged with fostering selfishness, teaches every 
man to estimate his labours by their tendency to promote the 
general good. Nor is it unimpressive, as regards even what 
Wordsworth so finely calls 

The unreasoning progress of the world,* 

to watch how the social plan is carried on by the composition 
of so many volitional forces, each bent on its own aims. " The 
first party of painted savages," it has been well said, " who 
raised a few huts upon the Thames, did not dream of the 
London they were creating, or know that in lighting the fire on 
their hearth they were kindling one of the great foci of 
Time." ..." All the grand agencies which the progress of 
mankind evolves are formed in the same unconscious way. 
They are the aggregate result of countless single wills, each of 
which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps ' fully 
gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in the 
secret service of the world." f If law be indeed the expression 
of an intelligent and benevolent will, reverence and obedience 
towards the great Lawgiver must surely be fostered (mark, I 
do not say created) by the study of His laws, and the contrasted 
results of their observance and their violation. And, finally 
as regards that practical religion whose testing fruit is effort for 
the good of man — a study which shows so clearly that human 

* " Ija the unreasoning progress of the world 

A wiser spirit is at work for us, 

A bettei eye than ours." — Wordsworth. 
t James Martineau. 



200 LECTURES ON EDUCATION 

welfare is involved in obedience to fixed laws, and that obedi- 
ence, to be reliable, must be based on knowledge of their exis- 
tence and authority, must surely stimulate the extension of this 
needful knowledge among all classes of the people. In this 
light, it is abundantly apparent that, sacred as is the duty of 
acquiring knowledge, the duty of diffusing it is not less sacred ; 
and that knowledge is no exception to the divine precept — " It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

APPENDIX TO p. 177 

Political Economists, with but slight exception, have neglected to urge 
universal Teaching and Training in the Economic laws as the condition indis- 
pensable for the most beneficial working of those laws themselves. Misled by 
physical analogies, e.g. between the relation of supply and demand, and the 
rising and falling of water as it seeks its level, they have failed practically to 
recognize that human motives and human will are ever the keystone in the arch 
which bridges over the interval between economic cause and effect. To Mr. 
Samuel Bailey belongs (so far as I know) the credit of having first clearly 
established this truth — simple as it is — in his Essay on The Uniformity of Causa- 
tion-, published in 1829. The same writer, in his Discourse on Political Economy 
(1852, p. 109), thus writes : " The object of Political Economy is not to ascertain 
all the laws by which wealth is produced and distributed, but only one class of 
them, namely, the moral or mental laics, or in other words, those laivs of human 
nature on which the economical condition of nations depends." It may be 
doubted, however, whether even Mr. Bailey has sufficiently insisted on the great 
practical inference from his own doctrine — the necessity, for all men — of in- 
struction in the nature of those laws. Yet here lies the answer to those who 
point to the manifold misery coincident with our civilization, whether they 
content themselves (like Mr. Carlyle) with angry protests against " Laissez faire, 
laissez aller," or go on, with the French and other Socialists to build up schemes 
for the entire reconstruction of the Economic World — schemes which would 
substitute centralized compulsion for individual agency, separate or combined, 
with a tendency more of less direct, more or less avowed, to Communism (or the 
abolition of property and of family), as their ultimate results. The ignorant 
abuse of human freedom, however, is a reason why men should be instructed, 
not why they should be enslaved. Let but enlightenment keep pace with liberty, 
and it will be found that intelligence within will succeed where compulsion from 
without must fail ; and that the free action of the instructed individual is the 
true guarantee for the well-being of the community. To reduce this conviction 
to practice no one has yet done so much as Mr. William Ellis— the munificent 
patron of the Birkbeck Schools.* No one has laboured so zealously as he 

" To render with these precepts less 
The sum of human wretchedness, 
And strengthen Man with his own mind." f 

* See Education as a Means of Preventing Destitution, etc., by William 
Ellis, Author of Outlines of Social Economy, etc. London : Smith and 
Elder. 1851. f Byron's Prometheus. 



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